Recollections of a Former Goomba
by mewmaster93
Summary: A Clash of the Elements Gaiden Story. Thirty years ago, a tyrant reigned over the Mushroom Kingdom and all of its surrounding territories. A victim of his vicious crimes, a lone Goomba with a forgotten name, is saved by a Koopa he will soon come to respect as they try in desperation to obtain that which was said to stop evil for good...The seven stones of the Elemental Overlord.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

This story spoils some major plot elements in Clash of the Elements Part 1 and Part 2. So if you wish to read this story, it is suggested you read those two first before proceeding. Part 3 is not required, but you are welcome to look at that too. You can find all parts by looking through my profile, so enjoy them and this if you so wish to, and please review or comment or like!

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It is a cold night inside of a quiet base out in the middle of nowhere. The heaters have been malfunctioning lately, and the soldiers inside of the base have started to grow tired of walking down the frigid metal hallways day after day. As of now, something has to be done to keep the cold from lowering the people's morale any further. Though it is late and most of the soldiers are trying to go to sleep, one familiar Lieutenant is currently making his way towards the Command Sphere where the malfunctioning circuitry has been discovered. With his control over electricity, the Lieutenant planned to fix the problem and fall back to sleep. Though actually, there was another reason as to why he was heading out alone tonight.

His Commander, a Goomba roughly in his forties with golden mechanical arms attached to his body, had been showing signs of fatigue as of recent days, and the Lieuteant was going to make certain that he wasn't resting against his chair instead of laying down on his bed once more. With the doors creaking open, the Koopa entered the dimly lit room and checked around for any signs of activity from his Commander. Sure enough, he was nowhere to be found, and the Lieutenant quickly began to hear the sounds of slumber coming from the chair high above where he stood. As of this moment, the glowing computer screens lying on the rounded wall in front of him were watching him instead of the other way around.

"Sigh…Not again…" With an unsurprised sigh, the Koopa mused to himself as the door shut behind him and he began to walk towards the staircase "He should just put a bed in here if he is going to keep doing this to himself…" As he made it halfway up the stairs he looked at the computer screens and said quietly as to avoid waking his Commander up "I really hope he isn't trying to look for him again…I'm worried that his fantasy belief is starting to consume his life…" But as he said that and moved beside the Commander's chair, he looked up and was surprised to find something different than what he expected on the screens. There were hundreds of lines of text scattered about a white backdrop, and though many different words were used they all spoke of the same subject.

"Thirty years ago…Commander Zeta…The Day of Liberation?" As he expressed confusion over everything that he was reading, he heard a mumble beside his body and instantly recognized that his Commander was waking up from his sleep because of the noise he had been making. With impeccable timing, the Koopa tapped his right hand against the arm of his Commander's chair and used electricity to shut the computer screens down as to not arouse suspicion. He then composes himself, folding his arms behind his shell and taking a step back so his Commander would be able to turn his chair without knocking him off.

After a few smacks of his lips, the Commander let out a tired yawn that kept going and stretched out the pronunciation his words as he began to speak "Haaaa…Gemini? Is that you behind me?" Upon reaching the end of his real question, the Commander's voice became more clear, his tone being a little gruff as he taps his fingers against the edge of the chair's arm and looks up at the curiously blank screens in front of him. "That it is sir…How did you know?" The Koopa asked, his tone wrought with a hint of confusion as he peeked over the shoulder of the chair and watched as his Commander gestured towards the screens above. "I saw your reflection off of the blank screens. Not to mention you left a little static behind on the left arm here."

Expressing a bit of innocent embarrassment over his marginally small yet avoidable error, Gemini flinches in place before lowering his head slightly and muttering to himself "Oh…" "Anyways, I'm guessing you came here to fix the heating, right?" The Commander said to his flustered Lieutenant to try and get him back on track, and with yet another sudden flinch Gemini says to Alpha with a respectful tone of obedience "Yes sir, let me get right on that!" After remembering his mission, the Koopa leaps down from the pedestal and heads around the cone shaped edge in order to quickly seek out the panel he needed to open to fix the problems with the heating.

Upon pulling it out and looking at the wiring, Gemini quickly deduced which of the wires had become faulty and used his powers to put everything back in order. With his job done and a warm draft emerging through the nearby vents, the Koopa placed the panel back into its proper location and stood back up, wiping a sweat drop off of his forehead as he looks up and sees Alpha standing up off of his chair with the computer screens turned back on and the same text appearing across them much to Gemini's surprise. The Goomba scowled as he looked at the text, his right fingers tapping against the back of his left elbow as he looks at the words for a few seconds before choosing to let out a melancholy sigh and saying in a tone that was purposely loud enough for his Lieutenant to hear "Perhaps it is time to talk about you…"

"Sir?" Gemini responded as predicted, with a tone of curious concern towards his Commander as with a casual tapping of a button behind him Alpha shuts off the computer screens and leaves the room dimly lit by the translucent light on the ceiling. He then turns around, staring down at his Lieutenant from atop the pedestal for a few seconds before leaping down with his arms held out beside his body and his trench coat waving around in the air. With his sudden impact with the ground, the Koopa takes a step back in surprise, especially since his Commander is being uncharacteristically silent at this moment. "Sir, you feeling alright? You look rather tired, and I know its because you are-"

"You saw the text on the computers, right?" Alpha interrupted his Lieutenant politely, his body turning towards him as he folded his arms behind his back and his eyelids began to sag below the normal level. "If so, I'd imagine you have a lot of questions that you'd be wanting to ask…So go at it Gemini, I think you are ready to hear the truth." "Y-You sure about that Commander? Again, you really look like you could use some sleep and I don't want to keep you-" "Relax, Gemini." Alpha interrupts his Lieutenant yet again as he tried to express concern for his current condition, his voice rather chipper in tone despite the clear signs that he wanted to let out a yawn between words.

"This body of mine is more machine than Goomba at this point. Fatigue isn't really going to hurt me like it would to you, so if you think I can't handle telling you a story or two then you are sadly mistaken." Though Gemini didn't believe what Alpha was telling him, the Koopa reluctantly folded his arms in front of his chest and raised his right eyebrow in slight confusion before closing his eyelids and letting out a light sigh before creaking his eyelids opening slightly and saying to his Commander "Alright then, if you insist…Why don't you just start from the beginning of it all? Who was Alpha before the M.S.I., who is this Commander Zeta, and what is the Day of Liberation that apparently happened thirty years ago?"

"Hehehe…Now that's more like it Gemini. So you want to hear the truth about my past? You know, this information isn't something that's very well-known despite how crucial it was to the history of Plit, because I made certain that all traces of my existence in those events were wiped from the history books long ago. Only those who lived past that day know about my involvement, and let me tell you that the number of people alive to this day can be counted with only two hands. But enough rambling about the secrecy of that information…Let me start from the very beginning, exactly thirty years ago when these arms of mine were not even known to me…The day, I met Commander Zeta for the very first time…"

**Clash of the Elements Gaiden:**

**Recollections of a Former Goomba**

_To be continued…_


	2. Chapter 1: The Beginning Clad in Fire

"_I don't recall much of what happened before that fateful day…Whether it was from the sheer mental trauma of the whole nightmare or because I was thrown through three houses by a single swat from the beast, I do not know…Perhaps it was a combination of both that did it for me. Either way, what I do remember is something that has been ingrained into my life and dreams ever since, when I woke up from my bout of unconsciousness and through my blurry vision I saw the fire paved landscape around me without a single scream to alert me that anyone besides myself was still alive at the scene of injustice. With the charred remains of the buildings crumbling and lying out across the ground, the only other thing I could see as a shadow beyond the rising, crackling flames was a monstrous, horned creature with jagged spikes spread out across its scaled shell and the blood of its other victims dripping like a waterfall between each of his ravenous claws…"_

"H-Huh? Where am I? Wh-what is going on around here?" In a shrill voice showing much confusion, the young Goomba who would eventually be known as Alpha began to lift himself up from the charred ground by using the back of his feet, but a sharp feeling of pain thrust itself through the sides of his body and stopped his rising self from continuing any further. He plopped back onto the ground, a migraine like feeling pulsing in the back of his brain as he struggles to keep his mouth from letting out a scream and alerting the shadowy monster from looking his way. "Oh god…Why…Why does my body not want to get up?" Laced with innocence, the Goomba's voice showed that he was unaware of the condition of his body at the time.

The sides of his skin had been peeled away partially, leaving his flesh vulnerable to the heat exuding from the rings of flames around him. These two patches of flesh also made it impossible for him to rise, for every time he would attempt to do so the pinching of the open nerves would re-impose the same feeling of pain the young Goomba experienced and he would fall back down even harder than he did before. "…" Silence and a disgruntled sigh of disappointment soon followed, as too did the concerns regarding his own well-being as the flames rustled closer to his body one centimeter at a time. "W-Who am I even supposed to be? I…I don't remember anything…"

A conflict of identity began to grip the Goomba's mind, as he found himself questioning just who he was and what his purpose in being here was meant to accomplish. He didn't know anything, not about himself or the location he had landed down upon. He knew not as to why he was in so much pain, or what the monster in front of him was meant to be. He had nothing but his confusion, his silence, and the agony of the flames lashing against his weakened body every second or two. With all of his questions and not a single answer being provided, the Goomba forgot all about his vow to not let the monster see him, and with an agape mouth he let out a powerful shriek of anguish that echoed across the flames and rung into the ears of the monster.

With a low echoing growl, the beast turns its head through the flames, its eyes red and yellow with bloodlust as it sniffs the air and turns his head around to try and find out where the last living creature here is at. The young Goomba becomes frozen in fear, his heart beginning to beat rapidly as he clasped his lips shut and bit down on the bottom portion to keep it as sealed as physically possible, even if his teeth ended up drawing blood from the veins. But for all of his silence, the beast still managed to catch a whiff of his scent through his elongated nostrils and slowly turned his body towards the source of it at the center of the destruction he paved.

His two-pronged tail crashed against some debris, blowing it away into the distance without any visible effort to do so shown on his body. Some of the flames burn across the creature's skin, but there are no ashes to show any damage because of how resistant he is of the heat. With a hungered snarl, the creature takes a mighty step forward, his foot rising only two inches off the ground but smashing down with enough strength to topple a one-story building. As he walks closer to the young Goomba, his face still remains obscured in the shadows of the rising flames, and he doesn't even creak his lips open to smile at the prospect of devouring another creature that he deemed to be beneath him. With his sweat increasing tenfold, the Goomba truly believed that this would be the point where he would die, and he didn't even know who he was or why he was here.

"_I've been through many tough situations in my lifetime Gemini. My life has been in danger many times as well…But there has been no other time where I have felt more scared then when I stared into the eyes of that monster and saw nothing. No fear, no anger, no hunger…Not a single emotion was expressed by that brutish killer in either his face or blank glare. So on top of being incapacitated, by body was completely stiff with fright as the beast drew ever closer to me. I panicked, took one last gulp of nervous saliva as I closed my eyelids and quivered in place without a single hope in my body. And then, without warning…He appeared."_

The monster stops ten feet away from the young Goomba, for that is all the length he needs to cover by leaning his massive body forward. With a snarl through his nostrils and an unholy steam emerging outward from between his teeth, the monster bent down and looked at the fleshy Goomba at a frighteningly close distance, his tongue emerging and licking the front of the young creature's chest in order to taste how fresh his meal would be. Disappointed that the fire had heated the flesh up a slight bit, the monster nevertheless growled at the prospect of having another delicious treat this rather nightmarish evening, and cared not about the condition after three seconds of ravenous thought.

But as he opened his mouth ready to devour his hapless victim whole, a brave and heroic voice called out to the monster from rather close by "You won't take another life here today, tyrant!" This voice was followed by the monster taking pause and turning his head to face the being responsible for interrupting his meal. For his troubles, the gargantuan creature took two continuous strings of bullets to the face, all of them rebounding off of his thickened skin and causing nothing but slight irritation to him before the wave of steel projectiles comes to an end abruptly. But this minor distraction proved to be enough to get the monster to lift his body up and turn towards the right by ninety degrees, his head creaking back and forth as he searches the charred battlefield for any sign of his attacker.

Suddenly, he is struck hard beneath the chin just seconds before a whirling shell shoots out past the creature's body upside down as an irritating beep begins to repeat in the monster's eardrums. The beeps get louder and louder as the shell descends and the creature stands motionless while wondering just where the noise is coming from. By the time he notices an increasing gleam coming from his chest and starts to look downward, a series of perfectly placed explosions goes off across his body, launching him diagonally through the air and causing him to land a hundred feet away from everything else with a gigantic crash that spreads a ring of dust across the circumference of his body that puts out some of the flames around him.

Landed on the ground, the shell of the smaller creature spins around rapidly to brush most of the flames away in a circle, leaving enough of the charred ground for him to stand on as kicks himself off the ground and positions himself stomach first as his momentum starts to die out. With a push of his arms and a swift tap of his hands against the ground the creature pops his head through the top of his shell as it straightens itself upright, and a long black trench coat come out the neck hole as well. As it falls down the red-shelled creature with blue eyes stretches his arms out one at a time to fit them through the sleeves while at the same time pushing his leather boots and legs through the bottom holes of his shell.

Having now found himself standing perfectly on the ground, the shelled creature reaches for the left pocket of his trench coat with both hands and swerves tugs at the lip of the pocket in order to make it easier to pull his desired weapon out it swiftly. Cocked in the grip of his hands is a wide barreled cannon with a red lip thicker than the hole that the ammunition fires from and a silver body that shared similarities in design to glistening megaphone. With the flames spreading closer towards the turtle's body, the creature is quick to lower his head and flip the scope of his carried weapon so he can begin moving the reticule around to lock onto the rising monstrosity's body. He had to hit him in just the right spot, otherwise his entire plan would be foiled. "Come on you son of a bitch…Just a few more inches…"

Mumbling quietly to himself to further his level of concentration, the Koopa flips his eyelids open wide as he sees the beast stumbling in place slightly from the explosions that crossed the vertical expanse of his chest. With one pull of the trigger, a massive glass sphere filled with a grey, gassy substance is flung through the air in a curved arc, and after five seconds it collides and breaks against the monster's brutish nose to release a thick cloud of smog designed to obscure his vision and befuddle him even further than he was before. With his job done and his body having recovered from the recoil of his weapon, the Koopa stuffs it away back into his trench coat and looks towards the spot where the young Goomba was and looks on in panic as the flames grow ever closer to his helpless body.

"Hang in there kid, I'm coming there right now!" He exclaims, his plan being to give the kid hope in his grim situation long enough for him to look around and examine the scorched ground to see how he should traverse it from here on out. With a glance to the northwest, the Koopa sees the still standing remains of a stone wall nearby and figures he can use it to leap over to his target. After taking a step back, the turtle kneels down so the bottom of his trench coat begins to rest along the ground in a rather crumpled fashion, at which point he looks at the wall ahead of him and kicks off the ground, gaining enough momentum in such a short burst of speed to be able to leap outward over a distance of fifteen feet so he can perfectly stick his landing on the lip of the wall.

Without so much as a pause, the Koopa twists his body to the right and sees the young Goomba straight ahead of him, and with his coat swaying with his form because of the warm air rising from the encroaching flames he leaps forward as the wall crumbles. His movement is so well executed that one could tell that he had much experience when it came to such leaps, and after gravity took hold he landed right in front of the young Goomba, whose eyes had been overtaken with awe instead of the fear that gripped them once before. He did not know who this mysterious stranger was, but for him to bravely combat such a grotesque monster without even flinching did much to take the Goomba's mind off of the flames and pain surrounding him.

"Kid, you holding out alright here? Try and take a light breath in for me." With a warm, almost fatherly voice the Koopa tried to get a grasp on just how bad the young Goomba's condition was, and after snapping out of his state of awe the mushroom shaped creature nodded his head and opened his mouth to take some air in. However, as he attempted to do so he stopped halfway and let out a dried cough, indicating a deprivation of moisture in his body because of the heat around him. Biting the lower end of his lips, the Koopa turns to the left and sees the monster beginning to break through the smoke cloud with a few furious swipes of his massive claws.

With a slow, bestial roar akin to that of a furious T-Rex, the Koopa flinched in fear of what was to come and quickly turned back towards the young Goomba and saw as he stopped coughing and froze in place simply because of the roar ringing inside of his eardrums. "Heh, don't know why I was thinking that I could save anyone on the site of destruction…Sorry kid, but I'm gonna have to take you back to my base to get you healed." Embarrassed at how everything had turned out, the Koopa quickly put his hands underneath the Goomba's body and stood up, rushing towards the edge of the ring of fire without giving his cargo a chance to react to everything around him. With swift leaps back and forth across the remains of the houses, the Koopa managed to escape the burning battleground without the monster taking even a second to consider chasing after them. With an uncaring growl, the creature turns around and lumbers off across the flames, his shadowy body vanishing into the ash covered backdrop in only a matter of seconds.

"_So thus I was saved by the man I would later come to know as Commander Zeta, my body being pressed against the warm gales covering the sky as he pressed forward through the destruction until he eventually found his ride, the elongated helicopter that you and I have rode many times before Gemini. Sadly, I myself do not remember my first ride inside of that vehicle, for the moment he swung the doors open with a voice command the stress and pain of everything up until then caused me to fall unconscious, albeit with an innocent smile on my face thanks to the fact that I was saved in my time of need. Whatever happened between then and my awakening, all I know in the end is that fourteen hours passed in total before I awoke in what would eventually become an all too familiar location…."_

_To be continued_


	3. Chapter 2: Alpha and Commander Zeta

With a nightmare capping off his long, uncomfortable sleep, the young Goomba wakes up the exact moment that the monster lets out an echoing roar, his ensuing gasp feeling rather hollow in nature despite how frightening that final moment was for him. But his mind is taken off those horrid images quickly, for he notices that his body has managed to lift itself up off whatever cold ground he was laying down upon without any of his nerves pinching together. In fact, he can't feel anything at all on both sides of his body despite the open skin that was left there before he fell unconscious. "Huh? The pain is…completely gone?" As he was left to his questions, the young Goomba noticed that his voice sounded gruffer in tone, as if something had happened to his vocal cords in the interim between both events.

As he thought to himself about his vocal cords, he was completely oblivious to how his mind was making a golden, mechanical limb with an array of complex machinery move towards the front of his chest, where it began to tap on the spot where the young Goomba's vocal cords were underneath the skin. With the chill of the metallic touch spreading across a small radius of the skin, the Goomba froze in place for a few moments and blinked while he stared blankly into the distance, and with a suspicious creak of his eyes downward he notices the heavy limb that has suddenly become attached to his body and freaks out at the mere sight of it.

"AAAAHHH!" His scream was loud enough to break weakened glass, but it lasted only a mere couple of seconds before he quickly began to scamper backwards across the cold floor using only his feet. However, based entirely on the instincts resounding inside of his mind the arms helped speed his efforts along by taking the fingers and clawing them at the ground. A few moments is all it takes for the young Goomba to reach the edge of whatever surface he was sitting on top of, and with a portion of his body getting ready to fall off he turns his head behind him and quickly stops his feet. But without a clue as to how these arms operated, the Goomba let out a panicked cry of "STOP!", knowing not that his mind stopped the mechanical limbs instead of his words.

"H-Holy…" Flabbergasted in response to these metal monstrosities, the young Goomba took breaths in and out at a rapid pace, trying to calm himself down as he finally chooses to take a look around the room he is in. He appears to be in a medical ward of some sort, with a translucent rectangular light glowing down from the ceiling perfectly around the table he was sitting down on and a large, foggy one-way window placed on the eastern wall in the room. For the moment though, the Goomba felt as though no one was watching him, which was not an easy feeling to digest considering the fact that just a while ago he was picked up by that strange Koopa. Away from the table, the young Goomba could see a doorway with no handles, signifying that it was one of those new fangled motion detecting doors that for some reason he remembered hearing about long ago.

"_After getting a grasp of my surroundings, I was left with many questions about my current predicament. Where was I? What happened to that Koopa? And why did I suddenly have these bulky arms attached to my body? I was thankful for the fact that I was alive and no longer in pain, but the uncertainty I was experiencing was threatening to dissolve that feeling of peace that I had just came to reacquire. I needed to see or hear someone, ANYONE trustworthy enough to ease my rising tension…Though as I waited for a voice to ring in my eardrums, I scooted back across the table to the center point and looked over my new arms in order to see what they could do or how they worked."_

"Ok…Calm down here and think…" The young Goomba steadily reassured himself that he was ok in this situation, even after the spiral of confusion and self-doubt had plagued his mind. "Of course, how calm can I truly be when I don't even know who I am?" That was what the mushroom creature thought of next, and with his mind meshing with the circuitry of his arms the right hand promptly moves towards the Goomba's forehead and begins to scratch it to help him further express his confusion. With the feel of metal against his skin, the youngling stops thinking for a moment and watches as his arm grows limp and falls flat against the table beside him. "…I guess my mind is used to operate these arms…" He murmured to himself.

"Hey, how you doing down there?" A voice inquiries through a fuzzy intercom in the distance. Knowing not where it came from, the young Goomba was glad if just a bit surprised to hear another person after what felt like a very long period of time. However, this mysterious person didn't have the same voice as the Koopa that rescued him from the flames, indicating clear as day that it was someone else speaking to him. "Umm…I-I don't know." It was an honest response derived from the youngling's current state of confusion, and after a faded humming noise from the person behind the microphone the Goomba continued on by saying "If anything, can you tell me who you are, can you tell me where I am? I-I think that would really help me feel better…"

"Oh, sure thing kid. I can see why it would be hard to express your condition when you feel so uneasy in here…" After tapping against the microphone a couple of times to fix the static effect in his voice, the mysterious person leans his head forward and speaks into the device. "First off kid, do you know what you are?" He asks. "Umm…Yeah, I do actually. I'm a Goomba, and I came from the planet Plit…But I just don't remember what my name is or what I was doing before that Koopa rescued me from that monster…" Giving yet another honest response, the youngling scratches the top of his scalp with his right hand and waits for the voice to respond. "I-I see…Well kid, I can't really give you any answers about your identity, if that's what you wanted too…"

"Either way, back to the previous subject." Skipping along from a tone of sadness to firmness, the voice says to the young Goomba in a crystal clear tone of voice. "I'm Dr. Shy Guy, currently the only medical expert here at the M.S.I." "M.S.I.?" The young Goomba said, for the name of the organization was very unfamiliar to him. "It stands for the Mushroom Secret/Spy Industry. The two "S" words are interchangeable in the abbreviated form, just to let you know. Don't worry about us kid, we have no intention of harming you. We're the good guys, otherwise our Commander would have left you to die." Speaking in a chipper, reassuring tone so the youngling would feel more comfortable in this metallic environment, the voice stops for a moment as the Goomba raises his right hand into the air with a question at the tip of his tongue

"Ok…I-I believe you about your allegiance…But why did you guys put these arms on my body?" "You'd have to ask our Commander about that one. I wasn't the one who put those on you, I just applied the anesthetic so you wouldn't feel any pain as we operated. Not gonna lie kid, you looked pretty roughed up when our Commander brought you in. I'm actually surprised that you made it back here alive, let alone survived the operation. But I have to digress a bit here, if you have any questions about what happened out there, which you likely will have because of your memory problems, its best for you to find our Commander and talk to him. If I'm correct, he should be up on the roof of the base."

After tapping a few buttons on the keyboard in front of him, the Shy Guy causes the doors to swing open in front of the young Goomba, giving him a way out of the room without so much as a struggle. "Anyways, I imagine you have figured out that the arms respond to your thoughts, right? Well, if you ask it to pop up a map of this area, you should be able to find your way around…Assuming our Commander installed such a device inside those limbs. Also, hopefully we will be able to speak face to face next time, cause right now I have to go tend to some casualties at the main medical ward. Good luck with your endeavors, kid." Shutting the intercom off so he can assume his regular affairs, the Shy Guy leaves the room, and after leaping off the table and going by the guy's suggestion the young Goomba activates a holographic map from his right arm and stares at it in awe-inspired wonder for a span of five seconds until he accidentally loses sight of what's in front of him and ends up running into a steel wall.

"_After pulling myself away from the wall in embarrassment, I alternated my line of sight between the map and the hallways. Even thirty years ago, everything looked the same as it did now if albeit a little unpolished. But at the time, I knew nothing about the technology around me, and was simply fascinated by all the time and effort that must have gone into creating this grandiose base. There were a couple junctures where I had almost willingly deviated from the correct path just to take a closer look at everything, but was brought back on course by my inner desire to learn what was going on in the world. After a few more minutes of guided walking, I made my way to a staircase that led to the roof of the base…"_

Climbing out of the dark passage only to be greeted by the bright rays of the orange, setting sun, the young Goomba uses his mind to shut off the map and raises the right limb above his eyebrows to give himself a bit of shade until his eyes can adjust to the light. The sleek, metal plate covered rooftop had a length comparable to that of a football field, though the young Goomba wouldn't know such information as of now. At the northern edge of the rooftop, a familiar Koopa stood completely still his the warm, end of day breeze blowing the bottom edge of his wardrobe backwards as he keeps his hands inside of his pockets to keep the rest of the trench coat from blowing away. Though the young Goomba couldn't see it from his point of view, the Koopa's eyelids were shut and his mind had gone into a state of utter tranquility.

"Ummm...Hello there…" The Goomba says in a meek, timid tone of voice to try and get the Koopa's attention. With his eyelids perking open, the turtle looks around him and says to himself in a rather joking tone of voice "Huh? Is someone calling to me? It sounded rather quiet if that's the case…" He gazes over his shoulder while keeping the illusion of inattentiveness with his head held up, and only speaks up after the youngling behind him nervously murmurs to himself "Oh…" and slowly moves his eyes towards the ground in shame. At that point the Koopa turns around and chuckles while gesturing beside his body with his right hand.

"Hey, don't feel bad about that, I was just trying to keep the mood light with a little humor. I heard you perfectly fine, though I shall admit that if you wish to you should try and work on the volume you take with other people just in case they are hard of hearing." With a rather chipper, warm tone of voice the Koopa manages to lift away the shroud of doubt covering the Goomba's mind and gets him to lift his eyes back up so he actually looks the turtle straight in the face. "So, how you holding up?" He then goes on to ask as he stuffs his right hand back into his trench coat, especially upon noticing the subdued, curious glare in the Goomba's pupils.

"H-Huh?" Embarrassed to face his savior in this particularly troubling moment of his, the young Goomba mutters out a puzzled response due to him hearing only half of what was spoken. Sensing the reason as to why the youngling was behaving that way around him, the Koopa nervously pulled his right hand out and rubbed it against the back of his scalp while closing his eyelids and scrunching his forehead between the eyes slightly. "Sigh…Kid, I don't want you to feel embarrassed standing around me. I'm not really that important of a person, so its not like you should feel honored or anything like that…" Being humble for the Goomba's own benefit, the Koopa puts his hand back in the trench coat once more and smiles at the Koopa.

"B-But I am honored…For you to have saved my life from that mysterious monstrosity, that is…" Speaking with a little more confidence in his voice, the young Goomba gave the Koopa an appreciative gesture alongside a humbled chuckle, but the second part of his comment drew a suspicious glance from the turtle. "Mysterious monstrosity? …I can't believe for even a moment that you wouldn't know who that rotten tyrant is, so I'm guessing you are amnesiac or something close to that?" Making a rather accurate guess, the Goomba flinches in surprise and declares with a joyous nod "Y-Y-Yeah…That's actually part of the reason I wanted to seek you out!" With his enthusiastic stuttering, the Koopa stood still and waited for the youngling to continue talking before he gave some of his input on the subject matter. "You see…The last thing I remember is…Well, the burning landscape that you found me in. I don't remember my name, where I came from, or anything personal like that…I do know what planet I'm on, I know that I am a Goomba and you are a Koopa, simple things such as that come straight to my tongue without trouble, but…"

"No no no, I see what you are getting at…Still…" The Koopa stood still for a moment, pulling his hands out of his trench coat so he can cross them in front of his chest. His mood became a bit somber, since with everything that the young Goomba had said he knew that there was some harsh news that he would have to deliver to him in relation to all of it. "…Kid…I don't know how to really break this to you…But that burning landscape used to be a sanctuary for all Goombas that defected from the Koopa Kingdom. If anything, you used to live there, probably with friends and family members…And considering that I was a one-man rescue team, I have no idea if there are any other survivors…Knowing that tyrant though, he probably made certain to kill everyone else who weren't incinerated by the fires…It makes me cringe just thinking about the blood that was spilled across that beast's scaly palms…"

As the Koopa expressed grief and rage over the loss of lives at the once proud village of Goombas, he clenches his right fist to the point of his bones cracking in front of his chest. But then he looked up, and saw the young Goomba standing perfectly still with a blank expression on his face. Upon noticing the turtle looking at him though, he seems surprised by his look of utter shock and doesn't say anything until the Koopa himself speaks up and asks him "W-Why aren't you sad? You lost your home, possibly your family, and you don't even know who you are…How can you handle all that news?" The young Goomba responds by getting his arms to shrug. "I-I don't remember anything about my past…I don't know what my life was like, what my parents were like, none of that…Perhaps my life really, really sucked before I woke up in that fire…Maybe these amnesia is a good thing, it gives me a chance at a new life, a new identity…A whole new me."

"_Knowing what I know now, I still can't believe what happened next. After a few seconds of eerie silence, Commander Zeta went deep in thought and continued to say nothing towards me. I waited patiently for a response, my head tilting in patient awaiting until he finally placed his caring hands into his trench coat and smiled my way. The words he would speak to me after that single point in time would reverberate inside of my mind for main years to come, shaping my way of thinking and keeping me from straying off the wrong path not just because of the context behind it all but because of the majestic way he spoke them."_

"That's alright with me." The Koopa said with blunt yet cheerful honesty, which took the young Goomba completely off-guard and made him reel back in surprise. "W-what? But what about all that talk of me experiencing grief?" That jumbled mess of words was the youngling's way of questioning just why the turtle suddenly changed his view on the whole emotion ordeal. "What you said after that made me think back to a rather common saying my father once shared with me, 'Everything happens for a reason'." Rubbing his chin with a warming smile on his face, the Koopa looked at the young Goomba with pleasant thoughts in his mind as he tilted his head and continued on by saying "Ergo, there must be a reason as to why you were given amnesia…And perhaps there is a reason as to why I was led towards you out of everyone else that may have been lying in the burning remains of Goomba Village…"

As the Koopa expressed his optimistic beliefs, he slowly drew his hand away from the bottom of his face and made a quick gesture towards the young Goomba so he would know that he had permission to approach him. After thinking about the words the Koopa said to him, the youngling walked forward, watching as the turtle turned around and held his left arm out to pat him on the back while brandishing one finger out towards the setting sun. By this point a red glow around the edge paved the barren wasteland in a new shade, giving it a more beautiful appearance than its rather flat ground and degraded rocks would suggest it was capable of showing. "See that out there? When you look at that landscape that has been painted by the sun, don't you feel all of your troubles melting away? Right now, as we try to survive the tyrant's bloodthirsty rule, its important for us to take away the good instead of focusing entirely on the bad."

Pulling his right arm away from the air and back into his trench coat, the Koopa also lets go of the young Goomba and takes a few steps forward as his companion looks at him in confusion once more and says "I-I still haven't gotten an answer on that actually…Just who is this tyrant/monster that keeps getting mentioned?" "…" Sinking into silence for a moment as his demeanor slowly changes from cheerful to melancholy, the Koopa raises his right hand out beside himself and says to the anticipating Goomba "He is the current ruler of Dark Land, and if not stopped the reigning ruler of the entire planet…His name is Balroc Koopa, a ruthless beast with no regard to any lives save for his own…He thirsts for power in whatever form he can obtain it in, and he'll crush anyone that prevents him from getting stronger. He has no empathy, no remorse…He is merely a vessel of flesh for malice and sadism, and one of the worst beings to have ever existed on our planet."

Sinking in a very serious tone of voice at the end of his explanation, the Koopa turns his head to the left and lets his lips move a single inch upwards for a grand total of twelve seconds while the young Goomba lets everything sink in for a moment. A single gulp of saliva down the throat of the mushroom shaped creature showed just how much fear was afflicted on his mind upon hearing about how vicious the tyrant truly was. But at the same time, it also made him urgently desire to say something about the whole situation. "Why hasn't anyone tried to stop him?! Surely if enough people got together they could kill the monster!"

With that bold declaration, the Koopa turned his head front and center and gave himself a light smile, glad to hear the young Goomba's optimistic response to the info he gave him. But at the same time he was disappointed in the fact that he didn't say "we" when referring to a group of people striking back against the monster. "Well, you have the right idea in mind kid…That's part of the reason I formed the M.S.I., actually." After the first sentence, the Koopa turned around and looked straight into the determined eyes of the youngling and continued on his way while calmly gesturing with his right hand.

"You see, with the world the way it is right now, there needs to be people willing to throw themselves into the midst of chaos and help out those that can't be helped in any other way. Of course, as you can imagine my merry organization isn't very big right now, simply because a lot of people are understandably scared of standing up for themselves against a monster that rules under the false grasp of power and fear. Still, we are trying to do what we can to keep as many people alive as physically possible, and then we have them sent off to a hidden sanctuary underneath Toad Town for their own safety…Though we have had a few people offering to stay with us simply so they can fight the good fight. Its a slow process, but I know that one day we will prevail against the tyrant…"

The Koopa then laughs at himself, and he quickly thinks about something from his past. "You know…Speaking of people standing up to monster…I'm reminded of an old legend my father read to me when I was young. It was about a Koopa, a Goomba, a Toad and a Boo standing together against the Shadow Queen and with their brave hearts they managed to turn her Crystal Stars against her and sealed her away under Rogueport for good. Too bad the things you hear about in fiction can't really work in real life…The Boos are completely under Balroc's control, and the Toads are way too frightened of the tyrant these days to ever consider stepping against him. Not to mention the beast is made of flesh, so it wouldn't be easy to seal him away like it was for the Four Heroes to take care of the Shadow Queen. Still, its tales like those that allow people to believe that hope still exists for them, so I can appreciate them even if they are nothing but fiction…"

"_Boy, if Commander Zeta lived til today and heard of what Mario did in Rogueport, I could only imagine the look of utter shock on his face that would accompany his disbelieving stuttering and blank glare…Still, it was impressive to see him standing around, knowing full well how badly everything was going in the world, and yet he still retained an optimistic belief that everything would work out for the best. And perhaps if I had not said anything past that point, he would still be alive today…But I can't go thinking like that now, especially since many things would be different in this world if he lived to this day…"_

"Come on! There has to be someway to stop this tyrant from rampaging across the planet right now!" Even after listening to everything that was spoken towards him, the young Goomba held onto the highly idealistic belief that there was a way to stop the monster sooner instead of later. This greatly surprised the Koopa, who after a moment of delighted pause turned around and said to the youngling "I'm legitimately curious about something now kid…You knew nothing about this monster because of your amnesia, and yet just a few mentions of what he has done and you are showing more determination towards ending his reign of terror than anyone else I have met thus far. So I have to ask…What is your reason for wanting to stop him so badly?"

"I-I may not have any memories of my past life…But that doesn't stop me from looking deep inside of myself and feeling sadness weighing down on my heart…I just feel a lot of sympathy towards those who are suffering out there, and I can't imagine them having the patience to wait for a permanent change to the stagnation of the world as it is right now. All those people being killed while that beast tries to get even stronger…And if we keep waiting, it may eventually end up being too late for us to do anything to stop him…I just don't get why people with power are usually like this…" After expressing his plight to the Koopa, the turtle stands in place and lifts his head up high for a moment before smiling wide and letting out a jolly laugh through his teeth.

"Hahaha…You bring up a good point there kid, and yet there is a rather simple answer to that. Power itself doesn't inherently corrupt people…It all depends on the personality of the person in control of that power. Actually, truth be told, we all have power deep down inside of us, and it can be defined in more ways than just raw strength like how that tyrant chooses to use his. I have the power of leadership over everyone that chooses to join the M.S.I….And yet, that very power can be taken away from me at any given moment." Planting one hand against his chest, the Koopa looks firmly into the eyes of his companion and says to be him in a rather light tone of voice "In fact, you could be the Commander of the M.S.I. right now if you wanted to. You and only you have the power to decide what you want to be. So do you want my position of power, or not?" "Ummm…No thank you…" The young Goomba didn't even have to think about a response, but what the Koopa was looking for here was just how the kid responded, not for what words he chose to use.

Seeing how timid the youngling was in his voice during that period of time, the Koopa raises his right eyebrow and said not a word as he placed his hands back into his pockets. "It was just a joke anyways kid…However, what I'm about to say is not. But first, I have to ask you…Are you truly willing to commit to your ideals?" The question caught the young Goomba off-guard once again, as he tilts his head and says in a murmured tone "Huh, what do you mean by that?" "What I mean is…Do you really, really want to fight against the tyrant? Are you truly willing to throw your life into the midst of chaos to protect everyone even though you don't know who most of them are? You can potentially die from what I am suggesting we go and do…Also, while I'm not going to try and stop you from doing anything, I do have a particular problem with kids of your age bracket going into battle, so for each step you take with me on this journey I will always feel guilty for everything that befalls you. Its up to you though…"

"_Commander Zeta gave me the decision of a lifetime then and there. He spoke as though he wouldn't have minded if I said no to his offer, but at the time I did not think about such options. I only felt as though I was obligated to say yes in order to be show appreciation for him saving my life…Of course, with everything that we had been discussing up until this point, I had actually forgotten about my questions regarding the arms on my body. As I stood there thinking to myself about whether or not I should take the Commander up on his offer, I remembered that very fact and said to him…"_

"W-Why did you give me these arms?" The Koopa was surprised by the young Goomba's desire to change the subject, but took it as a sign that he was considering his offer and was merely asking a question in order to get some reassurance inside of him. "Well, there are two answers to that question. The first is that because of the damage to your skin, I had to get something on there in order to prevent germ from flying inside of your flesh and making you deathly ill, and we didn't have anything else besides those mechanical arms at the time to use. The second one is because…When I saw you manage to survive making it back to my base, I saw within you a survivor's spirit, one that wouldn't break no matter what came his way. Maybe you don't realize that you have it yet, but if or when you do you'll find those arms will help you do things that many other people can only dream of doing."

Speaking calmly with the intent to help bolster the youngster's self-esteem, the Koopa goes silent and folds his arms into his trench coat while he waits patiently for the Goomba's response. The youngling stood still, quivering slightly at the fact that this brave, heroic soul fool heartedly believed that he was worth anything in the world. But though the thicket of self-doubt, a light shone through the young Goomba's heart, warming his tender spirit and making him stop and think for a moment about what he is saying. "…You know what." With a murmur that was loud enough to be heard by the Koopa, the kid raises his head up high and proud and arches his eyebrows to stare over at his hero and say in bold "I'm willing to risk my life if you are, sir!"

Proud to hear those words coming from the young Goomba's mouth, the Koopa pulls his hands out with a smile on his face and begins slowly clapping in front of his chest. The words coming between his lips then afterwards are not that of praise though, but rather ones of proper introduction. "Commander Zeta." "Huh?" The young Goomba says, wondering as to the context behind the Koopa saying that. "We haven't really introduced ourselves up until this point, so I'm telling you my name now, kid…" Upon mentioning that noun one more time, the Koopa takes a moment of pause and snaps his fingers in front of him before tapping his foot once against the ground and saying "Actually, you know what? I'm getting a bit tired of calling you a kid…It's rather demeaning, and implies a lack of respect between two people…Hmmm…"

Thinking to himself for a moment about a name to give the young Goomba, Zeta finally comes up with a brilliant name whose meaning he knew only he would get for the time being. "Alright my young companion, from this point onward you shall now be known as Alpha!" "…Alpha?" The young Goomba said, his mind trying to work out a meaning behind that choice of name, only to come up with nothing as he focuses on the appreciation he feels towards the Koopa for giving him this name. "You know…I think I really like that name. Thank you very much, Commander Zeta." Finishing his words of thanks with a nod of the head, Alpha looks at the Commander as he pulls his hands out of the trench coat and notices that the sun has fully set, leaving the sky dark and blue with nothing but the stars to keep the area illuminated.

"Time really has flown by up here…So I'll make this quick. Since we have both committed to this journey, I will tell you what my plan of action is…You see, a while ago during the creation of the M.S.I. base, I stumbled upon a stone tablet that spoke of a legend…Of a glorious man that wielded seven elements and sealed those very powers away in seven temples across the planet. If we can acquire all seven stones, perhaps we will be able to use this person's power in order to stop the tyrant from doing anymore damage to the planet I cherish so…I would say we should start right away, but under the shroud of night that beast has a good chance of finding us wandering about…So we shall rest for now, and in the morning we will go after the seven temples…Of the Elemental Overlord…"

_To be continued_


	4. Chapter 3: A First Encounter

**Author's Note:**

****I am really, REALLY sorry for this being as late as it is...The length of the chapter is part of the reason as to why it took me five days to get this up, but another reason for the delay was because I became sick for two days after releasing the last chapter. There are likely certain people who can make jokes like "You got sick because of brain damage from writing this really bad fic", but those type of jokes aren't really funny considering recent events. Anyways, I'll be more consistent from here on out, and later chapters in this particular story will be a bit shorter thanks to the fact that we are past the introduction. And I do apologize for the author's note at the mid-point of this chapter, I really do. Anyways, YET AGAIN, reviews and/or simple comments on the story would be greatly appreciated, and for those who have stuck around I hope you enjoy.

* * *

"_Admittedly, that night it was very hard for me to fall to sleep. For one, I had already taken a fourteen hour period of rest not long ago. And two was that my new arms greatly interfered with my ability to get into a comfortable position. Did you know it actually took me a whole year to figure out how to sleep right with these bulky things? It wasn't an easy task, let me tell you, especially since no one knew how the arms worked after Commander Zeta died…Still, what helped me sleep that night was the joy of what was to come the next day, in that I would travel out into the world and help my new Commander save the world from that monstrous tyrant of a Koopa…"_

"_When the day light finally came creeping in through the window, I was all set and ready to leap out of my bed and exit through the nearby door. Unsurprisingly, Commander Zeta was heading down the hallway to come and get me, having awoken an hour earlier in order to alert everyone that he was going to be gone for a while to find something that can help stop the tyrant. It wasn't exactly a long trip, since the base was only 100 members strong at the time, not including himself and I, since he made sure that no one besides Dr. Shy Guy and him knew about the fact that I was recruited into the M.S.I.. So after tossing me a fruit bar to keep me satiated for the time being, we headed towards the entrance to the base and moved through the sliding glass doors…"_

Entering the barren wasteland, Commander Zeta holds his left arm above his eyebrows to dilute the glow of the rising sun. "Today is the start of a brand new era, I feel…" He murmurs to himself as his young protégé Alpha catches up behind him with his small meal now fully consumed. With his lips smacking as he licks the remaining gooey bits of food from his metallic fingers, he looks up towards the sky with a rather awkward look of joy in his eyes. "Alright, at this point in time I don't think we shall run into too many of the tyrant's foot soldiers…" The Commander says with an optimistic smile on his face as he brings his hands in front of his chest and claps them together. "…Where are we going first, anyways? And didn't you have an aerial vehicle or something like that? Wouldn't it be better to take that around instead of going along the ground?"

"While that is an acute observation my young Alpha, its one that will have to go unused." Commander gave an honest yet delicate response to the young Goomba's inquiry, his head lowering slightly as he digs into his trench coat with his right hand and pulls it out with a latex black glove now attached to it. There is a device stuck to the top of it that emits a slightly magnetic pulse from the top as it releases a holographic plate for the Koopa to view. It was a green screened overview of the base, with the Commander and Alpha both showing up as blue blips at the very center of it. "You see, the tyrant has aerial forces that go on observation duty across the planet once every hour, riding their so-called 'Doomships' high above the perceivable clouds until they see anything that may disrupt their master's whims. We need to keep a low-profile as much as possible, so the copter is a no go for the time being…"

Finishing off the explanation without a single acknowledgment of the gauntlet hovering in front of his face, he has the map zoom out until a glowing red dot appears north of a lone town many miles away from the base. "Anyways, our first stop will be the Toad Town I mentioned last night. From there we shall head north towards the Osagi Woods, where the first temple called the 'Nature Castle' lies. If we get started now, we should make it over to the town in about a few hours, so start your pace and keep it going if you can." Turning his head slightly after gesturing with his wrist to shut off the device, Zeta looks at the groaning Alpha with a caring look in his eyes before saying to him "Well, we can take an occasional break to regain our oxygen if need be. I'm not expecting you to run a marathon from point A to B, Alpha."

"…Oh!" Realizing that the Commander was acknowledging his existence, the flustered Alpha lifts his head up quickly and shakes his head a couple of times before saying to him "No no no, it has nothing to do with the distance we have to travel. I'm just saying we got a lot of obstacles to overcome just TRAVELING from temple to temple…And our first stop is going to be a populated town, so if we screw up then we will be putting a lot of people in danger, right?" As Alpha nervously voiced his concerns, the Koopa kept his smile and quickly said in response once he was done "Then we simply won't screw up. Nothing difficult about that. Trust me, I wouldn't thrust innocents into danger on purpose…Accidents though, those are things I can't control…But if something does happen, then we will postpone our journey to help evacuate the citizens before the tyrant himself comes, alright?"

"Is that a promise?" Alpha asks, his doubt being blown away bit by bit thanks to the calm certainty in Commander Zeta's voice. "If I fail to uphold my end of this promise, may I be expelled from the M.S.I. forevermore." The Koopa replies in a rather militaristic tone of voice, and the words spoken cause the young Goomba to flinch in surprise at them "I don't think you really need to go that far Commander…" "Hmmm, perhaps you're right…" The Koopa takes pause and turns his head to rub his chin in thought. "I'm trying to make some codes of honor for everyone to follow once the organization grows big enough, but I guess I still need to work out the kinks…Either way, I'll just make it simple for both of us and say 'Yes' to your question. Now then, lets not waste daylight here." With his stance on the situation now secured, the Koopa withdrew his hand into his trench coat and began to walk forward with his young protégé behind him.

"_So we traveled through the blank, lifeless expanse of the wasteland in front of us, as Commander Zeta explained to me that he put the base out here simply because no one would think to look for it in such a desolate location. Admittedly, that truth had held up rather nicely save for the Subspace invasion…Either way, after climbing the nearby mountains and making it to the grasslands on the other side, an hour had passed, and with the help of his gauntlet Commander Zeta detected some life forms flying overhead and we made our first stop underneath a stone arch between the grassland and the edge of the mountains."_

Commander Zeta is leaned back first against the northern end of the arch, his head turned towards the sky as he keeps one eye moving back and forth between there and the map on his gauntlet until the brown ships high above move out of their line of sight. "I have to ask Commander…What is with that device on your arm?" The young Goomba asks as he sits down under the shadow of the arch a few feet away. Still keeping his eyes on the sky for a few more cautious seconds, the Koopa says to his companion "Its an experimental device of sorts…It acts as both a map and a life detector, though the range on the second feature isn't very good and I only get a faint signal from the Doomships, but again…Experimental."

With the blips fading away on his map, the Koopa once again flicks his wrist to shut the device off and he tucks it away back into his coat. "You know, if I ever perfect this technology, I'll put a copy of it into your right arm." Caring not about the potential danger of his position, the Commander keeps speaking casually to his young protégé until he sees a viable moment for the two of them to exit the arch. "Hell, you could likely finish the device yourself if you wanted to." Turning his body so it is all standing forward, the Koopa folds his arms in front of his chest as the young Goomba gets on his feet and says nervously towards his mentor "B-But I'm not that smart…I couldn't work on such a device like you probably have…"

Turning himself around quickly to face his young companion, the Koopa has a rather disbelieved look of surprise in his eyes as he keeps a neutral position on his lips and says to him "Lesson One Alpha: Don't just say 'not' when referring to yourself. That signifies a lack of confidence in your own capabilities, in that you will never be able to accomplish anything in your life…Try and say 'not yet' instead. It may sound grammatically incorrect during some instances, but when you say it you will make yourself and those around you more confident in your abilities. You may not be able to do certain things right away, but that doesn't mean you won't eventually be able to do them. That's the gist of lesson one."

"_That was the first of many lessons that Commander Zeta gave to me during our journey. As long ago it has been since I heard those words, they have always been the easiest for me to recall. I can even remember the submissive yet attentive look on my face right down to the last positioned muscle near my lips. Still, after everything was said and done there and I thanked him for giving me that lesson we continued on our way, making a couple more stops underneath single trees in the grassland until Toad Town was merely ten minutes away from us, at which point we kept going along our way until we met the first person at the edge of town. All things considered, the place looked nearly the same as the Toad Town of today, just with a lot less buildings due to how low profile the reigning Queen wished to keep the place at the time."_

"Well, I'm surprised to see you around here today Commander Zeta…" A gruff, elderly voice calls out to the Koopa from a few feet away. Looking down from the sky for a moment, Zeta's face lights up as he sees a rather pudgy man with grey buttoned-on overalls and a blue shirt underneath it while his muscular, hair covered lower arms are crossed in front of his chest while his battered gloves show signs of prior construction in this immediate vicinity. His face is deceptive in regards to his true age, for the hairs on his fluffy beard were perfectly black and he had no wrinkles across his skin. He had blue eyes and barely visible eyebrows below his bald, glowing head.

"Hey, Fernando! I must say that feeling of surprise is mutual!" Approaching each other with voices of joking, buddy-like respect, the two figures swing their right arms in front of their bodies and clasp their hands together to give each other a swift handshake before retracting their limbs while Alpha looks on in bewilderment because for all that he could remember about the species on Plit he didn't recognize this man in front of him. At first he thought it was a deformed Toad, but it was too tall for such a theory to be conclusive. So with a curious mind, the young Alpha waited for a moment to speak to his Commander and ask him "What kind of species is this? He looks rather ugly if I must be honest…"

"Well you don't like much of a beauty yourself, Goomba." With a bit of snark in his Italian tone of voice the human gestures towards the young Alpha from beside his Koopa friend and after a brief second he turns his head towards Commander Zeta and asks him "So, who is the runt you got with you my old friend?" Looking back at Fernando and then towards the young Alpha, Commander Zeta senses the rigidity between both of them and lets out a light sigh as he rubs the back of his head and says quietly to the two of them "Alright, I'll answer one question at a time here before you two start going at each other…First off, Alpha." Making a quick turn towards his human friend, the Koopa makes certain that he isn't offended by telling him "Sorry Fernando, but the kid did ask me first."

Nodding to confirm that no offense was taken, Fernando merely crosses his arms and waits patiently for his turn at an answer. "Anyways Alpha. You see, Fernando is a human, and one of the few left in this entire world. That's likely why you reacted the way you did to his appearance, because unlike most of the creatures in this world a human looks more…Hmmm, I guess the word 'adapted' would sound right here…Yeah, they look more adapted to the world's many conditions than we are. So you see, what would be considered ugly to us is normal for them. I'm not going to be too harsh on you considering you've never seen a human before now, but just be careful not to make that first judgment error again, alright?"

After calmly explaining what Fernando was, at the end of his inquiry the Commander kneeled down and patted Alpha on the right shoulder, smiling his way to show that no hostility was inside of his mind at the moment. "…Alright, I'll make sure to avoid that from now on." The young Goomba says with a little bit of an embarrassed fluster in his cheeks, and with a joyous nod Commander Zeta stands up and turns his body so Alpha can look up at Fernando and say to him in honesty "Sorry for calling you ugly, sir…" He was still a little bit embarrassed though, as evidenced by the slight retraction of his eyes before his sentence had ended.

Feeling a bit sorry for the kid's low social skills, Fernando lifts his eyelids up and pulls his arms away from his chest so he can make a gesture with his right hand and say to him "Kid, you don't need to call me sir, just call me by my real name…And your apology is accepted, and in turn I'm sorry for snapping at you." "Thank you…Fernando." After the two had exchanged apologies, Fernando looked at Commander Zeta and waved his right fingers towards his body to signal that he wanted to talk to him off to the side. Catching the signal with an observant glance, the Koopa turned towards his young protégé and said to him "Hang on a moment there Alpha." Listening to his Commander's advice, the young Goomba nods his head and stands still, using his time here to test the waters with his arms while Zeta and Fernando go a few steps away to speak without Alpha hearing either of them.

Quickly placing his right hand on Zeta's shoulder while turning his head to look at the young Goomba with a bit of surprise and guilt on his face before he turns back to his friend and asks him "So what are you doing with such a young fellow by your side? If its something personal I won't beg you to tell me, but you know for a fact that I'd be more than willing to help you out even in this time of great crisis…" With a light sigh and a closing of his eyelids, Commander Zeta accepts the truth given to him by his friend yet shrugs his grasp off lightly before saying to him "I understand that…That's the type of person you are Fernando…But you are also a man who knows his priorities, and you know me well enough to know why I wouldn't allow you to come with me…"

"Yeah…I suppose you are right there." It was a hesitant admission of submissiveness on the human's part, but not one that he felt guilty about admitting. "But still Zeta…Tell me why you have the kid with you at the very least. He may have a full life ahead of him, and you are willing to risk his life for whatever your goals may be?" Fernando took a serious, honest tone with his friend to try and make him stop and think about what he was doing, but with his eyelids creaking up Zeta looked his friend straight in the eyes and said to him "Fernando…" The name was all that was heard by the young Alpha though, as Zeta purposely slipped into a whisper as he finished the rest of his sentence in proximity of the human's ear.

Once their conversation was done, Fernando pulled his body back and said to his friend "Alright, I will trust you for now…" "Thanks Fernando…And hey, say hi to the wife and your two kids for me, ok?" "Will do Zeta, good luck on your journey." With a fond farewell between the two friends, Fernando departs to parts unknown while Commander Zeta turns towards his young protégé and wags at him with his right hand to get him to join his side once more. "Sorry for keeping you in the dark there Alpha, but we were discussing a personal matter between the two of us. Now we should get a move on, cause the time for the sky patrol's arrival is slowly approaching…" With not another word exchanged between the two of them for the moment being Alpha and Zeta head north between the gap in the two brick walls and keep walking until they pass the construction site of a grand castle, at which point they have exited Toad Town and are en route to the Osagi Woods.

"_Wait a second here Alpha…Overalls, an Italian accent, two kids…Don't tell me…You actually met Mario and Luigi's DAD thirty years ago?!" "You'd be correct in that guess there Gemini. Of course, it wouldn't be until nearly twenty-five years later that I would make that very connection…Still, I will tell you more about them later on in this tale, since they have a role to play yet. Upon arriving at the Osagi Woods, we were immediately greeted by the beautiful trees and strangely colored flowers. However, unlike what happened with Mario and Alex, we did not actually encounter Driad at the entrance…Knowing what I know now, that is something I have always meant to ask him about. Still, despite no one being in the area, Commander Zeta was a bit on edge…"_

Standing in front of a golden leaved brush with blue roses attached all-around, Alpha moves his metallic arm towards the bud of the one closest to his face and pulls it in a bit closer in an attempt to catch its scent. However, with a sudden stamping of his foot Commander Zeta put an end to that notion, the sudden, violent noise causing Alpha's heart to skip a beat before he stands up and turns around to face his mentor. "What was that for?" He asked in bewilderment, especially upon noticing the uneasy frown on his face. "We know nothing about this place…Sorry for the instinctive if rather jerk-like reaction there but those roses could be detrimental to your health if you sniffed in any pollen."

"Oh…That's actually a pretty good point." Alpha says, blinking as he comprehends the point that Commander Zeta brought to his attention. "You'll pick up on these things in time…But as for now…" After lightly speaking from past experiences, the Koopa quickly dug into his left pocket and pulled out two pairs of black goggles with thin green lenses, each one having an adjustable strap that would allow them to fit around Alpha and Zeta's heads with ease. With an accurate toss into his young protégé's hands, the Koopa leaves him to wrap it around his head for a few seconds while he gets the goggles properly positioned around his skull, pulling the strap out slightly so it wouldn't be too loose around the circumference.

He then turns to Alpha, only to find that he has successfully put the goggles on without any difficulty, which brought a happy if brief smile to his face upon noticing that. "So ummm…What are these supposed to be?" "Night vision goggles. Since we are going to be traveling deep into a forest, I figured we are going to want to be able to see where we are going at all times." Though Commander Zeta explained what this strange new device could do, upon turning towards the dark gap between the massive thicket of trees behind him Alpha found that he could only see the dark green tint of his lenses. "But…I can't really see anything." He laments.

"That's because they haven't been turned on yet Alpha. Just follow my example here." Turning his head to watch every last detail of what his Commander was planning to show to him, Alpha is pleasantly surprised when Zeta merely moves his right pointer finger towards the right side of his goggles and taps a small, visible red button on the side. Within a millisecond of time the lenses glow with a bright, light green tint. Going along with what was shown, Alpha does the same action with his goggles and turns back towards the darkness to find that everything appears clear as day to him now, even with the glowing green atmosphere in front of his vision. "This is amazing!"

"These are actually pretty common tools for spy espionage, though as of the moment I only have two in my possession." Commander Zeta notes as he reaches into his left pocket and pulls out another gauntlet, this one made entirely out of clear plastic while having a thin device on top with wires that spread out and connect to the upper part of his elbow. "What are you doing now?" Alpha asked as he turned upon hearing his mentor shuffling through his trench coat. "My nerves are on edge, which means there is danger lurking in the forest. I don't think we should get into any fights if we can help it since it may attract attention from above, so I'm going to activate my cloaking device to conceal me from danger."

"Ummm…And what about me?" Alpha nervously asked with a faithless amount of fear in his voice. "I'm not going to make you sit this one out. Don't worry, there is a cloaking device attached to your right arm." Commander Zeta didn't need to offer clarification on how to get it to appear since Alpha knew enough about the arms at this point, so with a raise of his right limb in front of his face the young Goomba thought as hard as he could and within a second the button that would activate the cloaking device appeared from underneath a flipped golden plate. The two creatures pressed down on the appropriate buttons, and with a wavy, ethereal effect slowly covering their body the two of them are turned invisible in the presence of everyone that wasn't themselves.

"_So with the devices active and running, we made our way into the thick of the forest. We had no way of knowing where we were going, but with how well protected we were I wasn't worried about encountering any enemies at the time. Nowadays though, I do have to wonder why the native wolves didn't attack us after catching a whiff of our scent…Chalk that up as yet another thing I have to ask Driad I guess. We weren't on any time limit though, so we just kept walking around, with Commander Zeta teaching me how to recognize tell-tale signs on the trees about the proper paths we needed to walk to reach the first temple. Surprisingly, the cloaking device never shorted out…But at that point I had no idea about the fact that some of Zeta's devices would short-out at the worst possible times…"_

The two beings arrived just a few feet away from the entrance of the Nature Castle, their bodies standing precariously behind a bush that was just a couple of inches below Alpha's eyes. **(Honestly, to break the fourth wall a bit here for an author's note, I am seriously not going to be describing what the temples look like again. I've done it twice before, and if you haven't read either Parts 1 or 3 before reading this story then that's something you'll be missing out on. I DID put a warning about this at the beginning of this story for this very reason. Anyways, sorry for this interruption, but I wanted to get it out of the way now.)**

Though the temple stood in front of them, Commander Zeta sensed an eerie presence in the air, something that was hidden behind the many rays of sun that shown through the branches above them and gave an unnaturally comforting sensation to any unaware trespassers as they made their way towards the entrance. With another click of the red button on his goggles, Zeta flipped the lenses so they'd have a more reddish tint while still maintaining the same green glow they did earlier. Looking into the distance, he sees a floating, spherical life form that wasn't visible beforehand, though he only perceives them as a glowing red figure and nothing more.

"We need to be careful approaching the entrance…Someone's there." Commander Zeta whispered towards his young protégé. "Huh? But I don't see anyone…" Alpha points out. After getting off his kneecaps, the Koopa says to him "Yeah, that's a fault on my end…I only upgraded one of the goggles to have heat detecting technology…This guy seems to be staying in the center of the entrance, so if we go off to the side we shouldn't run into him. Once we get inside, we'll deactivate the cloaking devices…" Giving his orders quietly, Commander Zeta makes a gesture that he knew his companion wouldn't see, yet all the same Alpha did know to get a move on around the bush so they could reach the Nature Castle.

"_It was at this point that our journey truly began, as we made our way inside of the Nature Castle while avoiding being detected by the outer guardian, who at the time Commander Zeta assumed was a Boo working for the tyrant's forces when he finally saw the creature from the side. Since we didn't want the creature to detect us suddenly, we kept moving down the hallway until we reached the staircase, our night vision goggles still providing sanctuary in this gloomy castle for as long as we were on this floor. Our entry into the more compacted hallway that was the second floor led to us shutting off our devices upon noticing the next obstacle in front of us…"_

"_A series of vines, all of the lashing about ready to grab and pull apart the limbs of anyone unlucky enough to cross their paths, were dealt with by Commander Zeta pulling out a lighter from his right pocket and flicking it onward so the flames would strike fear into the vines and force them to retract into the wall around them. Commander Zeta wasn't a smoker, mind you, but he always kept a lighter around in case he needed a source of fire to use in his endeavors. After waiting for the flame to die out and capping the lighter shut, he put it away in his trench coat and we continued on our way."_

"_A couple of vines tried to creep back out and snatch us from behind, but Commander Zeta looked over his shoulder and glared viciously at them while slowly reaching for the pocket the lighter was from. They backed off without taking another inch forward, and we continued on my way while my young mind did nothing but feel awe towards his impressive, calm way of handling that situation. With the night vision goggles, we easily found the hidden passage off to the left and made our way to the second staircase, which finally brought us to the final floor where the first Elemental Stone rested on a magnificently fitting stone throne beyond the many pillars around us. Despite out cloaks being down the outer guardian never came to stop us…If I had to take a guess, the outer guardian can't fight inside of the temple itself, so if you manage to avoid it they can't do anything besides wait for the inner guardian to hopefully destroy the intruder…"_

Moving towards the throne with a rather suspicious glare in his eyes, Commander Zeta looks around the room to see if there are any tell-tale signs of a trap or anything else that he should worry about. As his advance is slow, he takes a couple moments to look back and see if his young charge has been following his advice. With his head looking around the room as well without a sign of fear but rather that of caution, the Koopa smiled in joy upon witnessing him taking his words to heart and mind and quickly turned back before his glance was noticed. "Sunlight…Rather degraded pillars…And no unsteady movements in the ground…" Commander Zeta thought these things through to himself as he took one step forward with his left foot and rubbed it around along the ground to test that last notion of his.

"Lesson Two Alpha: Expect the Unexpected. It may be rather cliché of me to bring that one up so soon, but seeing as you and I both know that there are no obvious traps in this room that means whatever the Elemental Overlord setup here is very well-hidden." After giving a well-timed warning, Commander Zeta moves on ahead of his young protégé after holding his hand behind his shell to get him to stop. He makes his way to the throne, looking down at the glowing green Elemental Stone and saying to himself "The first stone…And yet not much effort was put into guarding it…This isn't right." Yet even with his doubts and slowly descending right hand, the Koopa went for the stone assuming that perhaps because it was the first temple that things were made easy on purpose.

But then his skin touches the edge of the stone, and a blinding flash of light thrusts through the room as Commander Zeta quickly leaps back and reaches for his trench coat pockets ready to pull out any weapon or device necessary to stop what was emerging as the shadow beyond the green glow. "Commander, what's going on?!" Alpha says in panic as he tries to rush towards his mentor's side, only for the Koopa to fling his left arm back and yell out to him in desperation "Stay back Alpha!" But as he finished his sentence his guard was lowered by the turning of his head and the moment the flash of light comes to an end he is hit hard in the side of his shell by a massive, thorny club.

Launched towards a random pillar in the room with enough force that his hard head breaks through the center and causes the upper half to fall to the ground and crumble apart, Commander Zeta then descends towards the ground and falls on his stomach after spiraling about in mid-air. His right hand was still placed in his trench coat as he landed, but after grumbling to himself over the damage inflicted upon his muscles by that brutish sneak attack he notices a bit of a electricity being expunged from his right pocket and he quickly withdraws his hand to avoid getting shocked knowing full well that the fabric in the pockets would prevent the voltage from spreading outward. Getting on his feet with a bit of limpness in his right arm, the Koopa quickly goes for his left pocket and finds that it is still operational as he draws out a laser pistol and throws it into the grasp of his right hand before turning back around to see what struck him.

Standing high above the ground with a bear-like appearance with arms and legs similar to a human's and a body composed entirely of mahogany wood was a titan drawn to life from the spiritual plane by the Elemental Stone. Having reacted to the touch of Commander Zeta, the beast draped in moss, grass and vines roars to life with a furious back and forth swing of its club against the pitiful throne in front of it that couldn't even reach up the halfway point between his foot and kneecaps. The rash destruction of the royal seat along with the overwhelming height and ferocity present in the titan struck the young Alpha with a deep rooted sensation of fear, and he quickly collapsed backwards with his hands planted on the ground beside him. He wanted to scream loudly, his heart pressured into pumping as much blood as physically possible to keep up with the distress in his mind, but he simply froze in place and did nothing but watch as the titan stared down at him and upon realizing that he was the only threat in the immediate area he let out another room quaking roar and took a mighty step forward while swinging his club in such a way that the thorns would strike the shaken up Goomba straight in the face and tear his flesh off in one blow.

But with a scream that showed fear and concern for his young protégé, Commander Zeta rushed across the ground despite the pain in the his body and with a careless fling through the air he prays for his success as he wraps both of his hands around Alpha's body and pushes him out of the way of the titan's mad swing. Tumbling along the ground after their collision, the cycle ends with Alpha flat on his back with a panicked look in his eye and his mouth opening and closing rapidly with every breath taken in and released, while the Koopa gets on his feet with his back turned away from Alpha while he cocks his gun and looks at the titan with furious eyes of his own.

Though Alpha couldn't see them from his cumbersome position, he could only imagine the expression as Commander Zeta exclaimed towards him with his voice no longer expressing much concern but rather having more urgency in it "Alpha, you still with me here?!" The young Goomba didn't respond though, he was so frightened of the titan's size and appearance that reminded him much of the tyrant bathed in shadows and fire from his nightmares that this very trauma kept him frozen in place and left him as nothing more than a panting, wide-eyed mess on the ground. Recognizing what was happening to his young protégé, Commander Zeta knew that he couldn't expect the kid to do anything in this battle. "Why couldn't I have predicted this happening…" The Koopa murmured to himself, his tone showing disappointment in his own shortcomings before he looked back up at the beast and leaped towards it with a great deal of valor.

"_The trauma of everything that happened the day before resurfaced and left me unconscious on the ground while Commander Zeta leaped into the air, leaving me incapable of seeing god knows what he was doing at first as I laid there not only trying my hardest to recover from the blow to my heart and mind, but I also had to deal with the shame brought on by the fact that I collapsed so easily on the ground. It was especially grating to me after everything I said to Zeta on the top of the M.S.I. base…I was overly worried that if we even survived this encounter, Zeta would want me to stop following him simply because I would be nothing more than an obstacle he had to protect from harm…But thinking back to what Zeta had said earlier, I began to realize that I was NOT YET brave enough to handle this…"_

While Alpha was on the ground, Commander Zeta was at working dealing with the titan. The Koopa showed a surprising amount of agility and reflexive capabilities as he ducked and leaped through the air to avoid the beast's ill-timed swings and quickly draw his pistol forward to shoot precise shots at the thorns on the club to cut them off from the rest of the weapon and remove the most lethal element of them from the equation. Landing on the ground after taking down three thorns, the Koopa thanks his gun for having unlimited ammunition and no reload times because it ran entirely on laser energy instead of the bullet filled barrels and clips like other guns in his arsenal did.

He thrusts his head back forward though as the beast readies another swing of his mighty club, this time it was brought across the air in a horizontal sweep that would surely dissuade the heroic Commander from rolling off to the side to get in some free shots. But what the beast doesn't count on during its rampage is that there was more than two directions that the Koopa could utilize with his movements to escape the range of the brutish swing, and with a quick leap Zeta positions his gun and sees two thorns right next to each other on the left side of the club and shoots an instantaneous shot that breaks them off from the rest of the bulky weapon. He then landed on the ground and waited for the titan to raise his club while he reached into his left pocket to pull out another weapon, his body turned to conceal his actions while he points his gun upwards and fires another shot that deals with the rest of the thorns.

"Lethality decreased…Now then…" With a draw of his left hand the Koopa brings a miniature green grenade out and places it in front of his mouth so he can pull the pin out with the front of his teeth, a determined smirk on his face as he begins to count the seconds down until the grenade would explode, and after a certain point in the countdown he flings it through the air towards middle of the rising club. Without a sticky element to the weapon, Commander Zeta had to make sure that he would be accurate in his toss for the desired effect to take hold. Sure enough, an explosion just as big as the club covers the wooden weapon whole, the more brunt aspect of it breaking apart the structure of the weapon into nothing more than a storm of splinters that spreads out in all directions while the beast roars in pain due to some of the flames touching its moss covered knuckles.

As the Commander casually blasts a couple of splinters that were heading his way while the remainder fall around him and impale themselves into the cracks. He looks up at the titan as it swings the burning hand in front of its chest while letting out a wail of beastly pain, its other hand wrapped around the wrist as it shakes the hand around to disperse the flames. As the titan gained slowly regains control of its limbs and looked down at the Koopa that had defiled its sacred body, its eyes arched in subdued anger, and with a simple clasp of its fingers its next action had been performed. Bursting out from the ground on all sides of Commander Zeta were the very vines that he had scared with his lighter one floor below.

Caught off-guard yet still in control of his actions, the Koopa went for his pockets and tried to pull out that very lighter to make them retract again, but the titan would have none of that as with a furious mind it commanded the vines to coil themselves around the Commander in such a way that he would have no freedom in his movements as he was hoisted into the air with the vines spread out like a perfectly set tent and his body kept at the center above it all. Crushing his life would not be satisfying enough if the titan let its vines take care of the job, so after lowering its limbs the creature began to lumber forward, taking on the ground one step at a time much to the horror of the nearby Alpha.

Having slowly recovered from his fear thanks to being inspired by Commander Zeta's braveness in battle, Alpha had lifted himself up, working with the weight of his limbs to get on his feet and get a better look at the titan as it passed by in front of him and move one step closer to his target. "No…" A one word sentence was Alpha's timid response, because he didn't want to alert the titan to his presence even if it may have bought his Commander some time. "Commander….I….I…." As much as the young Goomba wanted to mumble to himself in self-pity, he knew that would accomplish nothing. But that was not the only reason as to why he swerved away from those thoughts. Deep down, his heart pumped not in fear but in excitement. It was an experience unlike any other for him, even though as he would later find out this was the sensation one has when bravery rises up inside of someone.

Quickly thrusting his arm in front of his body, Alpha arched his eyebrows in his way that would become a natural part of his demeanor for years to come, thinking deep inside of him as a single nervous sweat drop trickles down his face. "Come on…You listen to what my mind wants? Then give me something powerful….Something that can blast this titan into nothingness…Please…" With his eyelids not budging farther than the halfway point as he peered straight at the hulking beast, Alpha clasped his left hand around his right arm's elbow and held it up strong, his mind making the gears of the arm work towards transfiguring the machinery into a different form. Suddenly, the fist has changed into a more cannon-like form as glowing red energy charges in the massive steel barrel, slowly building up ready to fire at the unaware titan.

Suddenly, a blast of ionic energy is thrust forth through the air, Alpha's body suffering massive recoil that launches him backwards and slams him against the closest wall as the beam slams right through the titan's chest and destroys it with the burning sensation of ionic energy. With the beast left with no central point that connects his limbs and head together, all the parts crumble onto the ground as the vines retract away from around Commander Zeta's body, leaving him to fall back first onto the ground with his eyes widened in utter surprise over what he just saw. But that surprise was replaced with a proud smile and a quiet, happy laugh in a matter of seconds as his arms laid out beside him.

Rocking himself back and forth to get on his feet once more, Commander Zeta immediately saw the titan disintegrate into green energy that seeps back into the Elemental Stone. Though there was a bit more caution this time as he approached it he would be glad to find that the titan would not emerge from the relic again. "…Guardians huh? I'll be more prepared the next time, but I'm glad we made it through this all the same…" Looking over to where he left Alpha at, he sees his young protégé laying against the wall, panting fervently in surprise while his arms are left in the same position they were before. After standing in front of him, Commander Zeta holds his hand out and says to him "You did good Alpha…You did good…"

"_As I sat there, lifting my head up through the sheer exhaustion of everything that happened just now, I was proud of myself for what I had done. If it wasn't for Commander Zeta's earlier lesson then I would not have mustered the bravery needed to stand up and try to stop the titan…I didn't have any clue about the Ionic Cannon when I first used it, it was just a great coincidence that that was what appeared on the arm…In the end, it was my newfound bravery, no matter how brief it was, that saved us from the inner guardian…One temple down…Six to go…"_

_To be continued…_


	5. Chapter 4: Into the Unknown Depths

"_With our first adventure out of the way, Commander Zeta saw plenty of reason to return to the humble town of Toads so we could take a quick rest in one of the safe houses and heal what little damage had been done to our body. Wondering why he referred to the damage done to him with such a underwhelming sounding word, he answered my inquiry by noting that his shell cushioned most of the vine's constriction around his body. It was a logic enough explanation, all things considered. As we were leaving the temple though, we activated our cloaking devices and night vision goggles. The creature Commander Zeta saw before had disappeared, and to this day I still have no explanation as to why the outer guardian left his post."_

"_We trekked through the forest, using our memories to retrace our steps until a familiar golden bush with blue roses caught our eyes along with the clear gap to the grassland between the woods and town. Shutting off the goggles for the time being and deactivating our cloaks, we moved out of the Osagi Woods and left it behind us for good. After that point, Commander Zeta finally pulled the Grass Stone from his shell and flung it over his shoulders while alerting me that it would come my way. This was my first chance to get a look at one of the seven objects we needed to stop the tyrant once and for all, and my mind already began to piece together what the other seven must look like just because of the stone's deceiving, simplistic design."_

"This is the object that is supposed to grant us the power needed to stop that tyrant?" The young Alpha held the relic into the air with one eye squinted to get a better focus towards it while he hums to himself in disbelief over the stone's powers. "Why do you have any doubts after seeing that titan born from the stone?" Commander Zeta asks, his voice showing a high and rather strange amount of enthusiasm despite the subject matter he was discussing. Alpha immediately clasped the stone and lowered his head to see his mentor with his arms folded behind his head, and after that he shifted his eyes downward and looked at the stone once again while weaving together a response in his mind.

Through his lips then afterwards came words laced with a tone of more prominent disbelief "Yeah…But that was likely a one-time trick…I-I just don't feel anything coming from the stone, as if all of its energy has been wiped out from within." Though there was a point in Alpha's words, Commander Zeta still let out a light sigh before pulling his arms apart and gesturing in front of him while continuing his advance and saying to instill more hope into his young protégé "Lesson Three: Believe that things will work out until its been absolutely prove that it won't. Yet again I have to resort to using a more clichéd lesson, but sometimes a strong belief in what you are trying to accomplish will provide you with the proper motivation to continue onwards."

Circumventing a condescending tone of voice in favor of a respectful one for his new lesson, the Koopa has assured that his companion will take heed of what he had to say and have a more proper outlook on their journey, even if that change may not happen right away. All he had to do from here on out was keep a smile on his face and never look back, and after a few more words from Alpha… "Well, perhaps the stones grow more powerful depending on how many we have…" that express a little more faith in their quest the young Goomba flings the Elemental Stone through the air, where the Commander casually swings his hand into the air and plucks it right out, retracting his limb back into his shell to keep the relic hidden for the time being.

Then the Koopa remembered something as the two of them neared Toad Town. With a flinch of surprise and his eyes going blank for but a moment, Commander Zeta looks up into the sky and realizes that with everything that has happened recently he has completely lost track of the flow of time. The air patrol of the tyrant's could arrive in a matter of seconds, and all it would take is one glance for the two of them to be noticed amidst the open field. If they were coming into town from the road, that would be fine, but the fact that were wandering around outside the town's perimeter would garner a lot of suspicion from the patrol and in turn would endanger the helpless citizens.

"…Come on Alpha, we better pick up the pace a bit, I need to figure out what time it is before its too late." Waving his right hand straight down beside him, the Commander hastens his pace with his young protégé following soon behind with a rather puzzled raise of his eyebrows. "Huh? How come you don't have a watch on you?!" "The thought never really occurred to me to bring one…I much preferred to count down the minutes and seconds inside of my brain anyways…Up until the point where that titan threw off my concentration, that is." Embarrassingly piecing together a reason as to why he was devoid of any watches inside of his near limitless pockets, the Koopa shakes his head and quickly tries to salvage the problem by admitting to his protégé "If I can get a watch in town, I'll grab one then, especially since we will likely be running into even more of those guardians in the future."

"_Finally making it to the center of town, Commander Zeta guided me to one of the nearby safe houses where one of the doctor Toads was free to assist me in recovering. While I tried to make a case to both of them that I was perfectly fine, a quick x-ray scan showed that my back muscles had become a bit kinked up because I wasn't properly braced on the ground when I fired off the Ionic Beam, so when I was sent flying my back hit the wall with such force that it deeply affected the muscles. I was in need of a massager that could get the blood flowing and the kinks worked out, so as much as we disliked it I understood that I would have to lie down on my stomach and wait for the procedure to go through. During this time though, Commander Zeta stood guard outside the house and kept an eye out for an approaching Doomships…"_

As Commander Zeta sat down at the bottom of the three steps that laid on top of a small hill on the west side of town, he folded the right part of his coat above his crossed legs and with the pocket held open with one hand he used a wire tampering device that was pulled from his left pocket in order to try and fix the circuitry that became busted during battle with the mighty titan. "Man, that titan really wouldn't have been too much trouble if I had access to both weapon deposits…" Bemoaning the bad luck fate decided to toss his way back at the temple, the Koopa kept to that issue for a few seconds before letting out a sigh and chuckling to himself in joy. "Still, Alpha got a nice confidence boost because I wasn't able to end the battle quickly, so going by my own advice here…It was something that was simply meant to be."

"Well, I'm surprised you two made it back alive with all of your limbs!" Recognizing the voice as that of his friend Fernando, Commander Zeta dropped what he was doing and looked up to see the burly man standing a few feet away with a piece of straw at the edge of mouth and a jolly grin on his face as he folded his arms against his chest and let the incoming, natural breeze brush against his body as he chuckles at his friend's pleasant smile. "Heh, you sound a bit surprised there my old friend…" Taking into account the human's jovial nature as he voiced his response, the Koopa brushed his coat gently so both edges draped out beside his shell once more as he got back on his feet.

"Nah, I know you can take a hit or two. I'm more surprised by the fact that the kid made it through safe and sound. Of course, if he didn't, that means your faith in him was misplaced…And it would be a sad day indeed if I heard that your faith proved to be wrong." Spitting out his straw piece at the end of his sentence, Fernando stands still for but a few moments after his casual response before he snaps his fingers in front of his chest and with a shift of his right hand into his single overall pocket he pulls out a silver watch that would perfectly fit itself around the right sleeve of the Commander's coat and with his head turned to focus on his friend once more he tosses it accurately into his awaiting grasp.

"Saw that you had no time tracking device on your person when you entered, so I went back to the house and scrounged up one of the spare watches for you to have. Now you don't have to keep doing that crazy 'calculate every second in my mind' thing you always did as a kid…At least while you are on your journey, anyways." After sharing a fond memory with his friend, Fernando smirked and let out a slight guffaw through his well-kept grin while he watched Commander Zeta wrap the trinket around his arm. When the job is done the Koopa raises his arm up in front of him and spins it around slowly, checking the metal wristband carefully for a particular mark carved into the smooth, slender surface. Upon noticing a familiar date and name on absolute back of it, the Commander's eyes light up as he realizes that this watch is the one he gave Fernando as a gift for his birthday many long, innocent years ago.

Looking away from the watch for a moment, the Koopa catches his friend's observant glance and glowing smile, and he need not say anything for his expression has easily been read. "I don't want you and the kid to be noticed by the tyrant's forces…At the very least, with that you'll be able to outwit the aerial troops…And it'll remind you of the better times in our life that we can reflect back on once everything rolls over." Completely stunned that his friend would be the one giving him an insightful remark for once, Commander Zeta keeps blinking at Fernando for a few seconds as he lowers his right arm in range of his eyes, at which point he looks down at the watch and notes via the current time that it had been a decent amount of time since the last patrol had come over Toad Town. He then looks back up and says to his friend with a tone of subdued, perfect honest "Thank you very much for this…Fernando…"

Fernando left the area not long after that, especially since there was nothing else to discuss beyond a few welcome thanks and the next thing he had to do with the Toads on the southern end of town. So with nothing else to disturb him, Commander Zeta sat back down on the steps and continued to work on fixing his broken pocket. Every few minutes, he would look back down at his watch and see if he would need to briefly retreat into the house to avoid being detected. However, he also cracked a smile every time he thought about the great favor his friend performed for him. "Hmmm…Next temple is south of here, just out to sea beyond the docks…Wonder how we will get to it." The Koopa murmured about the next objective on their journey, lifting his head up after finishing his work on the pocket and flipping his device around twice with a twirl of the fingers while curling his lips and turning himself around to check up on his young protégé.

Having been busy over the last few minutes, a single Toad bathed in a green robe has finally finished working out the kinks in Alpha's back and immediately leaps off of the table that he was resting on just now. "Be careful for the next few minutes now, and if you want another suggestion from me…" As the Goomba slowly lifted himself off the table with the assistance of his hands, his back muscles accepted the warm, flowing blood with a relaxing, melting sensation while he turned to the right in order to face the Toad that treated him only to be greeted with a bottle of water thrown straight at the center of his head, giving him only a second to swing his right arm in front to pluck it out of the air.

"Drink plenty of water. Anyways, I'm glad I could be of assistance right now, but I got another appointment on the way so I'm going to have to politely ask you to leave." After unfastening the belt around his small waist, the Toad throws the robe off of his body and lets it land on a coat hangar behind him to reveal a doctor's garb underneath. He pulls out a stethoscope and wraps it around his neck, and as he watches the young Goomba pop open the cap on his bottle he gently swings his left hand towards the door while only having half of his gaze focused on his former patient. Getting the hint the second time around, Alpha leaps off of the table while pressing the lip of the bottle between his own lips and taking a massive gulp of that cold, liquid nourishment.

Outside of the house, Commander Zeta stands in wait with his arms folded in front of his chest, noting the water bottle before smiling and saying with a bit of irony in his tone "Funny you should be drinking that…Our next temple just happens to house the water elemental stone." Surprised to hear his mentor mentioning the next temple after he had forgotten about it due to being so relaxed during the massage, Alpha looks at the Koopa with widened eyes while finishing a drink of water that came from his drawn away bottle. "We are going to the next temple already? Isn't that rather risky?" "A very well voiced concern Alpha…" Commander Zeta responded, voicing praise to his young companion while making a gesture with his right hand.

"However, remember that we need to be quick in our journey, cause the longer we go on for the higher chance there will be of the tyrant catching wind of our escapades. Plus, the sun is still up today, so there is no harm in us going for at least one more temple. Of course, I won't go unless the decision is unanimous, so its all up to you." Giving Alpha a perfectly good option for their next move here, Commander Zeta goes silent and waits for him to respond after folding his arms in front of his chest once more. "…Well, I guess since we have the time to do so, we can go out and take care of one more temple." Though there was a bit of hesitation at first, Alpha did have to admit that time was not something that was so readily on their side, so getting through everything quickly would be for the betterment of the people. "Excellent then!" Clapping his hands in joy for Alpha's decision, Commander Zeta turned around and the two of them began to walk south of the doctor's house, with the Koopa explaining to his young protégé that the next temple was right nearby.

"_So we made our way towards the docks, which was going through a bit of construction after some members of Balroc's army attacked it to dissuade sea travel. Along the way we stopped for a few minutes and hid under a tree once the time came for the Doomships to fly by overhead. Admittedly, I was starting to get really annoyed with seeing those aerial menaces after just a few times, but upon noting that the people on the planet have to see watch them come on by every waking hour without feeling any sanctity in their actions I called my complaints petty and chose to never bring such an issue up again. Still, I truly wished at the time that there was a way to destroy those Doomships…"_

"Alright, we've made it here safe and sound…" Commander Zeta notes as the two of them arrive directly at the docks. Near the three boards where the boats usually depart from is a crumbled patch of ground with burned edges and a clay center, the damage clearly having been caused by a single bomb that miraculously didn't touch any of the boards beyond. Or perhaps the boards were the first things repaired, that was something the two of them couldn't decide upon and there was no one around to ask about that. To the right of them was a small, humble bar with three seats underneath a massive, rectangular umbrella and a glowing neon sign that says "Club NES" on it. However, they were currently closed because of the construction that was disrupting business.

"Huh, the bar is new…" Musing to himself quietly on the new building in the area, the Koopa taps his right fingers against his chin while closing his eyelids and reminiscing a bit about what this place used to be like many years ago before the tyrant appeared, which is something that is completely unnoticed by Alpha's gaze due to the position of his body. After going back to the past inside of his mind, Commander Zeta looks around and tries to find the one person who looked as though they ran the current operation. Though such a task would be easy, the Koopa put a smile on his face and pieced together a fantastic idea for this current situation. "Alpha, look amongst the Toads in this area and try and tell me which one runs the construction site." He quickly asked, faking bewilderment to better motivate his young protégé into taking notice of what was going on in the forefront.

Alpha walked around his mentor, albeit a bit nervously, and held his right hand in above his eyebrows so the sun wouldn't block his vision as he looked outward. Immediately refusing to include the three Toads lifting the boxes straight ahead, the young Goomba shifting his head left and right to try and look for any tell-tale signs on the Toads clothing that may signify just what their role is on this team. He notices one particular Toad shifting about with a clipboard hidden under his right arm and takes note of that for now as he examines the rest. After a good minute of looking, none of the Toads really struck Alpha as being boss material save for the one he pointed out earlier. So after moving his arm away from his face the young Goomba said to Commander Zeta "Its the guy with the clipboard" without a hint of doubt in his voice.

"Heh, it likely is. I shall go speak to him right away…" Commander Zeta, knowing from the start which Toad was the right one, still maintained an air of humility around him as he stepped past his young protégé and went to go speak with the fungus holding a clipboard. "Excuse me sir." The Koopa politely quips in order to get the Toad's attention, and once the fungus turns around he looks up at the Commander with eyes gleaming in recognition of the person standing before him. "Oh hey, its nice to see you around these parts again Zeta." The Toad pleasantly remarks. Alpha, hearing this comment from behind, makes an averse glare towards his Commander because of what he kept hidden, only for a smile to go across his face as he recognizes his mentor's good intentions and feels a bit thankful for him doing that.

Of course, that didn't stop him from bumping his Commander lightly with his right elbow upon noticing him whistling inconspicuously to himself. After his body has flinched from the blow, the Koopa focuses back on the Toad and says to him "Its nice to be in familiar territory again, yes, but I am not here for more reminiscing. I'm here to conduct business, and if it wouldn't be too much trouble I would like to ask if you and your men could clear the premises so me and my friend here can work without any interruptions." Speaking in a rather organized fashion, Commander Zeta watches as with but a nod from the Toad to confirm that he is ok with the Koopa's request, the fungus turns to his men and hollers out for them to take a one hour break before they continue.

Caring not for the reason behind this peculiar request, the Toads drop what they are doing and walk away from the general vicinity, leaving only the boss to turn back towards Commander Zeta and say in a subdued tone of curiosity "Don't know what you plan to do here Zeta, but I wish you the best of luck…" And with that comment, the last Toad made his presence scarce, leaving the coat wearing Koopa to walk to the damage section of ground with his young protégé trailing behind him with a question on his mind. "Hey, that Toad recognized you…Did you used to live in Toad Town?" "A very long time ago, yes…" Commander Zeta responded, immediately pausing at the end of his sentence but with Alpha suspecting that there was more to the story than what was being said.

However, instead of continuing on any further as the young Goomba suspected he would, the Commander stood at the each of the docks with his body turned diagonally and his fists clenched lightly beside his body. He looked out towards the watery horizon, gazing into the sunlight reflected surface while squinting his eyelids to try and find the next temple. Nothing, not even an inch of the temple raised above the lowered tides, could be found amidst the shining sea. Alpha, joining him by his side, also looks outward with his eyelids squinted, but he has a more disgruntled look on his face as he notes to his mentor "The temple is supposed to be out there?"

As Alpha makes that inquiry, Commander Zeta pulls out his map projection gauntlet and pulls up an overview of the sea beyond Toad Town. A red blip marks the location of the temple as discovered via the coordinates on the tablet he read, so the Koopa can't help but scratch the side of his head as he looks at the map. "Yeah, it should be…" Discarding his gear by putting it back into his left pocket, the Commander looks back up and examines the water once more, hoping that perhaps he missed something. But once again, there was nothing visible above water, leading to the Koopa realizing a rather horrid conclusion that is spoken with disappointment "The temple must be underwater…"

"What?!" Alpha blurts out in both annoyance and surprise, but deep down knew that such a conclusion was going to be reached eventually. "But that can't be right…I mean, that would suggest that only aquatic creatures would be able to reach the temple, right? And those same creatures wouldn't be able to live on land without specific breathing apparatuses, so how could anyone ever hope to get this particular stone…I mean, its not like land creatures can suddenly grow gills or breathe out oxygen forever…" That last line snaps some inspiration into Commander Zeta's head, and after drawing his hand away from his face and into his shell the Koopa pulls out the Grass Stone they obtained earlier and looks down at it while Alpha twists his head to stare up at him and ask "You got an idea, don't you?" in a tone that recognized the gleaming look in his mentor's eyes.

"Yeah. Let me see if I can implement it…" Commander Zeta nods his head and lifts the Grass Stone high into the air above him, where it becomes crystal clear as it absorbs the sunlight in its entirety. When it has grabbed enough of it, it solidifies with green sparks filtering out of the surface while leaf-green colored rings glow outward and sink back into the relic. Without any warning from both the stone and the air around it, the stone thrusts forth from the front a massive beam of solar energy in the direction of the water. If the Koopa didn't immediately brace himself, his entire body would have been pushed back in a manner akin to what happened to Alpha in the prior temple. Still, even if his effort, he has to grasp his fingers around the orb tightly, for if he gives even a single inch his body will be in for a world of hurt.

With a predetermined line being cut straight through the sea, the beam suddenly stops at a particular point at the edge of the two heroes' view of the waters. With the stone's purpose now served, Commander Zeta puts it away and looks out into the split in the sea, and in a matter of seconds as a light quake disrupts the area the two walls of water spread out further to create a massive pathway on the seafloor that leads to a slick, marble tiled underwater ruin that was approximately two stories tall in the entrance alone. "Well, this isn't good…" The Koopa murmurs to himself while hanging his head forward and letting out a displeased sigh. His young protégé didn't share the same sentiments though, as he says in response "How so? We HAVE found the temple now, so what seems to be the problem?"

"Well I didn't think we'd end up splitting the seas in order to do so…Unless we are lucky, this won't go unnoticed by the air patrol. It should be a big enough split, anyways…" "Oh…" Slipping into the cold grasp of realization, Alpha turns away from his mentor while loathing the fact that they would be on a time limit in this next temple. "I wouldn't worry too much about it…If anything, the only major time consumer should be another fight with one of those guardians…Still, we got about fifty minutes until the next patrol, and I'll make sure to keep all of that in mind as we head through the temple. Before we move on though, lets turn on our cloaking devices so any of the sea life doesn't leap out and try to eat us."

"_So activate our invisibility cloaks we did, and down the water walled passageway we went not long afterwards. It was incredible for me to witness the walls gushing upwards into the sea, with gravity being deathly defied simply to keep this passage open for us to safely travel. Our movement was only slightly impaired by the soaked sand below, but we cared little about it as moved towards the temple entrance. All the while, I thought plenty of the power of the first Elemental Stone, which slowly dissolved my disbelieving mind until I was left with nothing but joy over how powerful the relic in question was. 'And that was just the raw power of one of them' I thought to myself as I joyously began to think about what the other six stones could do when brought together…"_

"Get down Alpha…" Interrupting his protégé's train of thought with a quiet warning, Alpha turns his head towards Commander Zeta with confusion as he notices his mentor's body falling to the ground with the indent of his figure being merged with the sand. Having little time to question why he had fallen, Alpha merely shrugs his metallic shoulders and lays flat against the ground, looking above him while wondering why his Commander is wasting time like this, even though he rationalizes that there surely had to be a good reason for doing this. Sure enough, the moment he thinks about this, the water bursts open to the right of them as a gargantuan beast flings itself outward and lets out a gargling roar before it stops in place above the two heroes with the water from its release splashing down upon their invisible bodies as little droplets.

The creature, a floating eel-like entity with a spherical head and malleable claws, swings itself so it looked straight on ahead. It had detected a presence in the area with the help of its otherworldly powers, but with his emergence he noticed nothing in the general vicinity and grew suspicious of everything around him. After all, the water walls had appeared, so that means someone was going to be entering the temple to take the Elemental Stone inside. So with his nostrils flaring up in a slimy fashion, the creature sniffed the air to catch the scent of the invaders, who he suspected had hidden their presence via some unknown means.

Alpha quivered on the ground upon hearing the hydra sniffing, and feared that either he or Zeta would be detected and would thus be helpless to do anything to save themselves. Zeta wasn't saying anything, for even a simple whisper would lead to them getting detected. The beast sniffs the air some air, moving left and right, up and down, and turning his whole body around to try and sense the presence of those who have raided his territory without his consent. However, the water on the two heroes' body dilutes their scent well enough for the beast to eventually snarl angrily at the situation and with its two rows of teeth in plain view it turned back towards the sea and slunk back into its habitat without so much as a fight.

Once they were certain that the beast was gone, both heroes lifted themselves up and Zeta brushed the wet sand off of his body with a couple gestures, the few wet grains that remained slipping off on their own merit. Alpha didn't want to say anything, in fear that the beast could return, so he would wait until they got inside of the temple itself before saying anything. The rest of the journey along the sandy path was uneventful, which was both strange yet welcoming as they entered the pristine temple and caught a whiff of the fresh sea air draped along the walls. "Its like we are walking underwater…Just without the fear of oxygen loss, of course." Commander Zeta made a rather happy comment about the environment without a single acknowledgment of the monster outside as he shut the device off and became visible to Alpha once more.

"Commander…What was that thing?" The young Goomba decided to bring the point up to his apparently oblivious mentor, and with a light sigh the Commander stretches his arms above his head while saying to Alpha "It was likely another of the tyrant's guys…" He had in a tone that suggested that he had little faith in what he was saying, something which the Commander suspiciously recognized as he shut his invisibility off and gestured towards his mentor with a befuddled stare "…You don't really believe that, do you? Cause if so, our whole journey has been compromised from the start because the tyrant knows about the temples." Zeta then goes silent as he lowers his arms beside him, and in turn Alpha thrusts his right arm out to the side and yells out to grab his attention "Commander!"

"No no…You're right Alpha. I just assumed that his forces were outside the temples because of that Boo we saw back there, especially considering that offhanded comment I made when you spoke to me on the roof of the base…But that monster, despite having something similar to the slick, spherical face of a Chain Chomp, had too many otherworldly traits for it to be a part of the tyrant's army…However, I don't have any answers as to what the creature was, merely questions and nothing more." Letting out a disappointed sigh over the fact that he couldn't help his protégé out any further, the Commander peeks his head up and says with a renewed sense of vigor "We will have plenty of time to figure things out later…Lets get a move on while time is still on our side…"

"_So leaving the topic be for the time being, we marched forward towards the edge of the platform we were on. We saw a massive trench filled to the brim with water, and at the moment we saw no discernable way to continue onward without taking a dip into the unknown waters. Commander Zeta volunteered to take a dip, using a pair of swim goggles and a breathing apparatus he snuggled away in his right pocket to protect himself as he dived down without me to watch his back once he sunk low enough. After a few minutes of waiting, the water level began to descend into the floor below, as it was quickly revealed that Zeta managed to pull a level that allowed the abyss to be drained enough for us to head on to he next floor. Rounded platforms with miniature fountains in the center gave me a way to jump down to the small lip that Commander Zeta was standing on, and we went on our way down the hallway."_

"_At the end we arrived in front of a small mine field that floated above a thin pool of water. The mines were stable enough to use as platforms, though only the duds would prove useful for us. Determining which ones were broken thanks to the bits of water dripping from the ceiling, Commander Zeta and I crossed the mines to reach a button that opened a door on the other side, and once there we activated another button that drained the mine pit for us to cross on the way back. In the next room there was a beautiful cascading waterfall that flowed endlessly into an altar, where the next switch we needed to pull was at. _

_Taking a walk slowly towards the altar while enjoying the beautiful sights around us, Commander Zeta found himself wondering as to how this temple ended up close to Toad Town, especially since the history of this place was never recorded in any books. It was yet another question that would not receive an answer during our quest, but I made certain to try and look into that later on. I'll share a few tales from that later on. As for our quest though, we made our way back to the main abyss after pulling a lever in the waterfall room, and with the water level lowered even further we leaped down towards another passage, this one having a thicker gap between the walls than the one prior to it. At the end of this hall, we finally arrived at the main holding chamber for the Elemental Stone…"_

In a expansive room with ankle-deep water and a series of lily pads covering the surface existed a gigantic fountain that was overflowing water into the floor below. There was an air of absolute tranquility in the room that couldn't be circumvented even by the inevitability that the two heroes would have to go for the Elemental Stone. Commander Zeta flipped his right arm in front of his eyes to check the watch, finding that they had approximately twenty minutes before the next patrol would pass by over the sea. If they didn't defeat whatever guardian was set in place and escape with the stone before then, they would have no choice but to put the citizens under the gaze of suspicion. "That is…Assuming the water will return back to normal upon our departure…" Commander Zeta thinks to himself with a look of uncertainty.

"Well, at least this time the guardian won't take us off guard…" Alpha says, a remark to which the Koopa agrees with indubitably as he walks forward, nods his head, and notices the Elemental Stone floating above the center of the water spout. With a few small leaps off the stone edge of the fountain, the Commander gets in reach of the stone and plucks it from its gravitational defilement knowing full well what would happen next. He kicks off of the top layer of the fountain and lands on the ground right as the stone glows, and with the energy building up around it he lets go and takes a few steps back while reaching into his right pocket to pull out his signature laser pistol.

From the light emerges a rectangular, silver robot with eight hose arms split between both sides of its body and two window-like eyes with black, ore colored eyes floating around in the water being placed on the front of the mechanical monstrosity's slick face. Whirring to life with its hoses flailing about slowly, the robot notices the two intruders standing in front of him and says in a gritty, buzzing tone of voice "INTRUDERS DETECTED DEFILING THE AQUA PALACE! ACTIVATING FLOODING MECHANISMS, ENGAGING DEFENSE MODE!" With a fling of its hoses into the air, the robot causes the fountain to overflow exponentially, which in turn makes the water rise higher and higher with each passing second.

Feeling the cold drench of water rising towards their stomach region, Commander Zeta fires one quick laser that is batted aside by the reflective surface of one of the robot's silver hose tips before he turns around and says to his young charge "We need to find solid ground, NOW!" Before making a dash for the way they came through. Alpha makes no hesitant effort to run as well, with the robot locking on to both figures and glaring a bright red at them before he pulls his hoses in closer and thrusts himself through the air to keep up with them. The hallway widens, the walls pulling away to allow the robot the freedom to move around without scratching its limbs.

Once on the other side, the water from the previous room has risen to the point where it flows off of the edge of the platform and begins to fill the abyss back up one gallon after another. It was thus necessary for the two heroes to climb rapidly while the spinning, circular platforms aren't submerged. Though with the robot trailing closely behind with its hoses ready to spray highly pressurized amounts of water at its targets, they had two things to worry about instead of just one. "Grab onto my hand!" Commander Zeta declares bravely to his young companion while thrusting his left hand out. Even though he is worried about the his mentor carrying him around with one hand while dodging the robot's attacks, Alpha nonetheless grabs onto his hand and waits for his Commander to make his next move.

Zeta leaps forward, the weigh of Alpha's arms and body together proving to be nothing to him as he makes it to the first platform and lands with only a slight slip of his feet towards the center point. The Commander then lets go and turns his body around while his young protégé tries to comprehend the fact that his mentor so easily carried him to this next junction. The robot lifts his body through the air and launches a torrent of water from each hose, attempting to cage the two heroes in an escapable prison of water from all sides only for Commander Zeta to pick Alpha up once more and leap up to the next platform to avoid it before it is fired.

Getting a bit dizzy thanks to being carried around by his mentor, Alpha pulls away from Zeta's grip and tries to get a hold of himself as the Commander turns towards him in concern while they have a brief respite thanks to the robot finishing his attack off. "What's the matter?" He asks. "I-I don't mind you carrying me around…But isn't there a way for me to get through the platforms by myself?!" A bit flustered due to running low on breath from the sudden leaps through the air, Alpha questions his Commander on a better method in regards to traversing the platforms, especially considering that his arms should in some capacity have a device that helps with travel.

"You do have the ability to launch your hand out to grasp solid objects and pull yourself towards them, but I wouldn't really trust using them on these platforms considering how slick they are…" The robot returns after the Commander hustles together an explanation, and though he is briefly caught off-guard he knows not to repeat the mistakes made with the last guardian and regains his composure long enough to turn around and fire a laser straight into the mouth of one of the hoses to puncture it and make it so the water that was supposed to be launched at him would instead burst out through the open hose. This offered another brief reprise, which Alpha spent looking upwards for anything else that his arms could latch onto safely.

After a brief examination period, Alpha caught the glimpse of the bottom half of an anchor sticking out of the ceiling between each translucent light, a detail he failed to notice when he had entered the temple earlier. With a joyous smile on his face, the young Goomba cocks his right arm into the air and braces it with the grasp of his left hand while turning towards his Commander and saying with a bit of spunk in his voice "See you at the top Commander!" Which manages to cause the Koopa to turn his head the very moment that Alpha uses his mind to get his right fist to launch up towards the hooks in the ceiling, the back of the hand being kept attached to its limb via a steel, flexible rope.

As his young protégé reels himself upward, the Koopa can't help but crack a sly smile while mentioning quietly "That quick thinking…" However, his attention had to turn back towards the robot, as it has recovered from the blow dealt to it earlier. "Yeah, don't think I want to fight you here…" The Commander notes as the water starts to rise below his feet. Quickly back flipping onto the nearest available platform, the Koopa alternates between keeping his balance, leaping to new platforms, and firing quick laser shots at the robot. His weak lasers merely reflect off the surface of the creature though, meaning that once he reaches the top and gets another brief reprieve he would have to switch out for something different.

After one last back flip through the air that allows the Koopa to avoid three blasts of water that punctures holes into the wall behind him, Zeta lands on the ground in front of his protégé, who has finally retracted his fist back into his arm. With a turn of his head in surprise upon seeing how quickly his mentor got back up top, Alpha widens his eyes as the robot flies out of the fully raised water and flails its arms about madly. "PERIMETER BREECH IMMINENT! ENGAGING FINAL BATTLE MANUVER TO ASSURE DESTRUCTION!" With the tips of the hoses glowing brightly, the robot swings them together into the center of his body and merges them into a more powerful form that looks very similar to a gigantic hydraulic cannon. Kept in place by the eight hoses behind it, the robot begins charging water up inside of the massive, golden device standing before the precipice of his body.

As Commander Zeta grimaced at the sight of the robot's final attack he quickly reached into his right pocket ready to pull something out that would make the attack backfire on the creature. However, Alpha held his left hand out beside himself as he walked forward, much to the Koopa's surprise as he then froze in place and watched his young protégé position himself in such a way that he has braced himself on the ground while thrusting his right arm in front of his body aimed directly at the center of the robot itself. "Don't worry Commander, I got it!" A bold declaration certainly, and one that the Goomba assumed would lead in to him using his Ionic Cannon to finish the robot off just like he did the previous guardian of the stone.

But as he focused on the robot with all of his might and used his mind to try and create the Ionic Cannon, Alpha slowly came to the realization that his arm was not even starting to transfigure itself to take on the form it desired, an error brought on by a mind clouded in overconfidence in himself. However, he was not able to realize this, and simply stood there with his eyes frozen in shock while the robot continued to charge its attack without interruption. Knowing right away as to what was going on with his young protégé, the Commander arched his eyebrows in slight disappointment while keeping an iron focus towards the battle set before him. With a quick draw of his right arm from his trench coat, the Commander flings a steel ball towards the hole in the robot's massive cannon. Before it can slip out of place, the Koopa quickly snaps his fingers together to get the ball to react to the sound and grow a series of spikes that impale themselves through the metal of the cannon's lip and forces it to stick there.

This move was timed perfectly, for it was at that exact moment that the robot was ready to unleash its high pressure water beam to blast both heroes straight out of the temple and towards their assured destruction at some far off location. But because of the spiked ball that had been jammed into the cannon itself, the moment the water tries to burst forward the lack of an outlet causes the liquid to quickly build up inside of the hoses and push itself backwards, the hoses themselves bulging and increasing in size exponentially until the growing structures can no longer contain all the water that has been built up inside of them and they immediately burst into rubbery fragments while the main cannon is launched and forced into one of the lights on the ceiling, which causes the luminosity in the room to flicker on and off above the robot for a seconds before the bulky device falls down and lands on top of its creator while surging with electricity.

The electricity mixes in with the water element present in the robot's body, affecting it negatively as it begins to spasm about in the air without a lack of limbs to show just how much pain the being is in. Eventually though, it proves to be too much for the guardian to bear by himself, and to avoid self-destructing an causing harm to the stone buried inside of his body he disintegrates into spiritual particles that seep back into the stone itself. This action befuddles the firm Commander, and as the stone falls to the ground without a bounce due to its density he begins to walk over to it while taking a glance over to his young protégé to find that he is still standing in position while wondering just why his right arm isn't transforming still despite the fact that the enemy has been defeated.

Commander Zeta picks up the stone and looks at it and notes to himself "That guardian turned itself into a spirit…Despite the fact that he was clearly a robot and thus would have no mortal soul inside of him…" That event along with the encounter with the creatures that stood outside of the temples brought another question to the Koopa's mind "…Just what kind of sorcery was the Elemental Overlord capable of performing?" With that being another inquiry that would go unanswered at the moment, the Commander turned towards his young protégé, who finally lowered his arms beside him with a look of distraught on his face. "W-Why didn't it work? I was so sure that it would…" Alpha was deeply depressed with himself for his failure to act correctly.

Walking over to his young protégé, Commander Zeta says in response to his concerns after tucking the next Elemental Stone away into his shell "You were a bit too sure of yourself. Confidence is one thing, but you were a tad too overconfident in yourself…That likely interfered with you being able to keep a connection with your arms. That's my two cents on the matter anyways. Besides, wasn't it focused bravery that allowed you to use the Ionic Cannon the first time?" Taking his mentor's words into consideration as he thinks back to the past, Alpha remembers the emotions he felt when he used the beam the first time, and upon realizing that Commander Zeta was right he slowly lifted both his head and spirits up with his eyes widening a gentle laugh coming from his mouth. "Anyways, we got about five minutes before the next patrol comes, so we don't have too much time left to loom on this matter…Lets get moving, Alpha." With a stern reminder of what would happen if they stuck around much longer, the two heroes made haste for the temple's entrance, leaving the place behind with two stones now in their collection…

_To be continued…_


	6. Chapter 5: Warnings of a Bigger Threat

"_With the Aqua Palace done and out of the way, we left through the passageway surrounded by the cascading walls of water, which began to collapse into the sea as we crawled our way back onto the docks. And just in time too, for we were about a minute away from the aerial patrol arriving. So after quickly confirming with the work Toads that it was perfectly alright to continue their prior job, Commander Zeta took me and we headed for the nearest cover to avoid detection. Once the Doomships passed overhead, we went over to the center of town and stood around for a few seconds before Commander Zeta pulled out his map gauntlet and stared at it to confirm our next whereabouts. I had one question on my mind though as I waited for him to speak…"_

"How do you know where all of the temples are at?" The young Alpha asked innocently, which caused the Commander to look away from his device for a moment and say to him while shaking it to shut it down "Remember that tablet I mentioned before?" To which his protégé replies to with a light nod. "Not only did it speak of the Overlord's legacy, but it also contained coordinates to each of the temple's locations. I had to decipher the many languages on my own time, but once I did I made sure to input the data into this device so I would never forget it. Speaking of that, I have a bit of bad news…" Changing from calm to somewhat peeved in the span of a second, the Koopa rubs the back of his head while letting out a minor sigh.

"What's wrong?" Catching the obvious display of annoyance on his mentor's face, Alpha in turn changes his mood to express worry as a slight sinking of his eyebrows gives helps him prepare for the encroaching, disappointing news. "Our next temple lies on the outskirt of Nimbus Land…Which means we are going to have a rather difficult time getting to it." As he goes on explaining, Alpha of course has a hard time understanding just why his Commander feels this way about the next point of their journey. Noticing the murmur and tilt of the head coming from his young protégé, Zeta is quick to explain himself by raising his head and going into a rather somber mood as he makes a swirling gesture with his right hand.

"Nimbus Land is one of few aerial based cities on this planet…Because of this, the tyrant is incapable of terrorizing them. This had led to the Nimbusians forming their own hierarchy with Sky Land and the other cities of their kind to take a neutral stance against the war going on down below…As such, they have made sure that no one enters their territory unless they are a Nimbusian that wants to travel on their Cloud Taxi from place to place. And as you can see, neither of us look like cloud people, do we now?" Dragging his hands through the air from head to waist to further emphasize how different his appearance is from that of a Nimbusian, Commander Zeta watches as Alpha follows the movement of his limbs and clearly gets his point as he nods his head and say in response "Yeah…That is a bit of a problem, isn't it?"

Rubbing the front of his forehead in bewilderment, Alpha tries to think of an idea on what the two of them should do next. The first thing that comes to mind as he moves his arm away from his body is "Can't we just go to the temple after that one then?" "I thought about that honestly…But the problem with that is the fact that the next temple is on a small island out past Toad Town's coast, so if we can somehow make circumstances work in our favor we can get a ride to both Nimbus Land and that island." Commander Zeta gets a smile on his face at the end of his sentence, and with a gentle gesture of his left hand beside his hip he says thereafter "Besides, we should keep things in order, especially since the Overlord went to the trouble of putting the temples in a certain order in the first place."

"Well…I suppose you are right." Alpha says with a hesitant degree of agreement in his voice. "So I suppose you have some sort of transformation device that can change us into Nimbusians and allow us to call a taxi to Nimbus Land?" A realistic enough question, considering Commander Zeta's prior moments of displaying a highly prepared demeanor, but this was an instance where the Koopa would provide a rather jovial, sarcastic response instead of one of serious intent "Oh darn it! I left my transformation device back at the base!" Alpha, obviously, was not amused, despite what his sly smile and half shut eyelids would want you to believe. "But seriously, a transformation device? You have a good idea there, but do you honestly think some guy is just going to show up out of the blue with one in hand?"

"_And that, Gemini, is why sometimes you should try and tempt fate if it can reap you a beneficial reward. For you see, Commander Zeta's off-handed comment was overheard by a particular individual who happened to be walking through the area at the time in search of a place to set up a new lab after his previous one had burned down on the Thwomp Volcano…This was the moment in time where the two of us first met, and though the years have changed his appearance immensely he still maintains the same demeanor and love for knowledge that we all know and love. Standing off to the side of us without either one of us knowing of us his presence, was the young Elvin Gadd himself…Professor title not yet obtained, obviously." _

"Excuse me kind sirs, but what is this about a transformation device?" The young Elvin Gadd, with his hair swirled and brownish-grey, walked up to the two heroes with his hip white, three buttoned t-shirt and black pants. For some curious reason, he was not wearing any shoes, his bare toes wiggling the grains of dirt between each gap in his foot as he stands still and gives his company a chance to look over his appearance. He had hoped that one of them would notice the lack of foot wear and comment on it, only for them to say nothing of the sort much to his hidden dismay. "Who are you supposed to be?" Commander Zeta asks, an inquiry which surprises both Alpha and the eager, wise young man for entirely the same reasons.

"You actually don't know about someone/me?" The split in the sentence between Alpha and Elvin Gadd happened at the very end, and the young man finds himself both surprised yet happy to see someone else sharing the sentiments he felt. "No, I haven't…Or at the very least, I don't recognize your appearance." Commander Zeta offers a brief apology to the man afterwards, to which the young Elvin gracefully accepts with a nod of the head and what would later become his signature laugh "Ohohoho…Its quite alright, I get that response from a lot of people consider my former reclusive nature. But allow me to cut out the confusion and introduce myself…My name is Elvin Getts Gadd, though if you would be so kind as to abbreviate that to 'E. Gadd' when referring to me I would be most appreciative of that."

With the name now revealed to those in the general vicinity, Commander Zeta snaps his fingers in recognition of the person standing before him and he blurts out to match his revelation "Of course! I know who you are now! You're that inventor who was made famous for the creation of that ghost catching vacuum cleaner…What was it called again?" "The Poltergeist 100...Sadly, I had to discontinue that idea for the time being considering a glitch that caused the suction to not detect ethereal creatures and instead target flesh based beings only. Perhaps when I get enough ideas on how to fix that glitch I can go forth with creating the 500 model…" Letting out a slight chuckle due to how glad he was to see Elvin Gadd thinking about fixing his mistakes, Commander Zeta says thereafter "I'd like to see the product reach completion someday, with the amount of Boos in the tyrant's army it would be nice to have a convenient device that can deal with them."

"Oh, I've thought about that, but the vacuum can only hold so many ghosts before the container explodes…Hmm, perhaps if I come up with a way to compress their spiritual bodies onto a sort of canvas…" Though he was somewhat glad to see his mentor enjoying a conversation with another person, Alpha hated how off subject the two of them had gotten along with the fact that his Commander had his attention focused on someone besides himself, so with a rather rude yet faked cough better emphasized with the bump of his right fist against his mouth the young Goomba successfully grabbed the attention of his two companions and said in a rather serious tone of voice "So umm…About that transformation device?"

Though Commander Zeta was ready to reprimand his young protégé for his rude interruption, Elvin Gadd spoke before him to answer his question without a care spent towards his behavior. "Ohohoho…That's right, thank you kindly for reminding me of the reason as to why I approached you. You see, I have with me at this moment an experimental transformation device known as the Duplighost Cloak. It is a cloak that I based off of the mystifying abilities of the Duplighost tribe. Simply by wearing it over your body, all it takes is a few words and the cloak will turn you into a generic version of what creature you wish to be. You can even turn yourself into a less conspicuous Koopa if you wanted to." The last sentence was directed towards the strange attire that Commander Zeta wore on his person, but it wasn't something that the Koopa took offense to considering how good of an idea that could prove to be in the future.

"So what do you want for the cloak?" Commander Zeta asked, his mind already coming up with a rather large sum of money to give to the young genius only for him to open his mouth with a chuckle and say in response "Ohohoho…I'm afraid that there is no monetary value in my offer. You can have the cloak for free, and I will accept no offers to change what this is worth." Surprised that Elvin was perfectly willing to throw his cloak away to a couple of strangers whose purpose he has not discovered, Commander Zeta unfolds his arms and asks the young genius one quick question before he lets the subject go "Why are you doing this then, if its not too much trouble for me to ask?"

"Why, its simply because I can. Generosity needs no reason, after all. Though, since we are on the subject of trouble less inquiries, just why do you two wish to go to Nimbus Land?" The question, which Commander Zeta found a bit delicate to answer considering the uncertainty of Elvin Gadd's allegiance, went unanswered as the Koopa and Alpha both stood still and awkwardly looked around in hopes that the young genius would understand why they were being evasive. "Ohohoho…I think I understand what you are trying to do. Well don't worry, I don't work for that tyrant Balroc, so I won't be reporting anything about your plans to try and stop him." Commander Zeta flinched. "This human is more observant than you would expect at first glance…" He then noted in his mind.

"Anyways, I must be heading off soon…I have an appointment with a certain someone about setting up a laboratory in the area, and if I'm late I will surely be set back a few months on my scientific endeavors." Reaching into the deep reaches of cloak as he politely prepares to depart, Elvin Gadd whips out a pale white cloak with a ring of protected circuits attached to the top of the hood, obviously meant to help with the reading of the wearer's mind. Commander Zeta grabs the cloak by the lip of the hood and holds it against his chest, lifting his head up to thank the young genius for his help before the man lets out a light chuckle and turns his body, saying to the two heroes "Hopefully I shall see you around again someday…I wish you both the best of luck in your future endeavors."

E. Gadd then walks away from the two heroes, disappearing from sight as they both look at the cloak now in their possession. "Wait a second…This is just one cloak." Alpha is quick to point out with a bit of worry in his tone of voice. "That it is…But I wouldn't worry too much about that considering we have more than one type of cloak in our possession." Commander Zeta speaks to comfort his young protégé's concerns as he wraps the cloak around his body and closes his eyelids to concentrate on the form he wished to take. "Nimbusian…Nimbusian…" He repeated like a mantra in hopes that the cloak would recognize the species and make an accurate transformation. Without warning and not because of the device short-circuiting, a puff of smoke is thrust out from the hood and the Koopa's body is consumed by it.

Taking a few steps back to avoid being touched by the mysterious smoke, Alpha raises an arm in front of his eyes and in fear of what was happening to his mentor he exclaimed out to try and get him to respond "COMMANDER!" Needless to say this drew a bit of attention from the Toads walking around the area, but instead of turning to see a Koopa and armed Goomba standing in the center of town their eyes focused on the Nimbusian that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Commander Zeta had now become a fluffy, cloud bodied creature with short, stretchy arms, flat shoed feet and beady black eyes above his mouth and simple blue jeans. Raising his arms in front of his face to get an awe-inspired look at his new, temporary appearance, the "Koopa" decided to talk to see if his voice changed as well. "So this is what it feels like to be a Nimbusian…" Sure enough, his voice remainder completely the same as it was before.

"Oh well, not like they will take notice of that…" He then thought to himself as he turned and faced his young protégé ready to answer his prior question. At first Alpha was having a difficult time adjusting to his mentor's new appearance, especially since he had gotten used to what he looked like before by now, but all it took was a familiar gesture of his left hand and the smile on his face to remind him that different appearance notwithstanding this was the same Commander that he always has been. "Anyways, we just need one fake Nimbusian to get onto the Taxi, so the second person will simply have to use their invisibility cloak to hitch a ride completely hidden from the driver's sight." The answer that Zeta gave allowed Alpha to have a little more faith in his mentor's plan, though its not like that would've been a hard thing to do considering the young Goomba's frail emotional state after his bout of amnesia.

"Though, if I must admit…" The "Koopa" lifted both of his arms into the air, letting out a tired sounding yawn as he focuses his mind on the device and makes it so he reverts back into his normal appearance with a mere puff of smoke. "I'm feeling rather tired now…" He then admits as he lowers his hands towards the hood and pulls it off, tucking the cloak away into his right pocket for the time being before looking up towards the sky and seeing that the sun is setting at its usual pace. "Alpha, you wouldn't mind if we stopped for today, yes?" "N-Not at all Commander." Alpha nervously replies, since he is kind of hesitant about taking a stop when there was still enough time he felt for one more temple. Still, another part of him did desire food and sleep, since he had gone without either for most of this long day. With no further objections, the two heroes trekked across town for anything that can satisfy their desires.

"_We looked around for a while, since the town wasn't very big and not many people wanted to serve us after word got out about the Duplighost Cloak…It took some thorough convincing of one of the restaurant owners for us to finally get some food, and we had to eat outside to avoid scaring off the customers. Commander Zeta took all the fear lightly, since he knew that deep down that these misunderstandings would get sorted out later on. I had my concerns to voice though, as per usual, but they were quickly forgotten as Zeta explained himself to me in an orderly manner. Still, at the time it was clear that our line of thinking was starting to differentiate, as I saw things in a more cynical fashion while he was optimistic about nearly everything that happened around us."_

"_After consuming our meals, we tried to find a place to rest for the night. That's when we ran into Fernando, who offered to let us bunk in a tent outside his house until the morning came. He said that it would be a one day thing simply because of the fact that his wife was suspicious of the two of us in spite of her husband's insistent attempts to convince her otherwise. So we went to his house, tucked ourselves into the sleeping bags, and fell asleep in a matter of seconds with full stomachs and rather pleasant dreams. The tyrant's appearance did not infest my mind, though later on in the night I was plagued with other doubts…"_

"_I thought back to what happened in the Aqua Palace, in how my Ionic Cannon didn't work when it was most crucial for it to do so. I was beginning to worry that I wouldn't prove useful at all to our mission, that I would never be able to conquer my overconfidence or anxiety in battle in order to use my most powerful weapon again…But in the depths of night, I couldn't consult Commander Zeta further about what to do, and even when the morning came I didn't say anything because I didn't know exactly how to word what was on my mind…Anyways, after finishing off a nice breakfast with Fernando's family, we used their phone and their book to call up a Nimbus Taxi to come pick us up in the center of Toad Town, and Commander Zeta prepared his disguise ready to greet the driver when they flew down from above…" _

Commander Zeta, now disguised as a Nimbusian once more, looked to his young protégé as they stood in the center of Toad Town waiting for their ride to arrive. "I know that this might prove difficult for you…But since you are going to be invisible the whole ride there, you'll need to be quiet to avoid drawing suspicions towards ourselves, at least until we reach the temple." It wasn't a hard request to fulfill, but Alpha had a problem with it simply because of the questions on his mind that have gone unanswered since the night before. He would have to be patient for their sake though, so with a submissive sigh the young Goomba said nothing more as he tapped the cloaking device button on his right arm and swiftly turned invisible. Just in time too, for the Taxi was descending from the sky above.

The vehicle was a simple, wheel-less car floating on top of a big puffy cloud, the driver wearing a normal business suit that conformed to his particular rotund proportions as well as it could all things considered. Looking over the side of the door he sat near, he saw the Commander standing there in wait, with the invisible Alpha over to the side beyond his notice. "Climb aboard good sir, and I shall take you back to Nimbus Land." The driver said politely. With a leap of his now lighter body, the "Koopa" made it into the back seat of the Taxi much to the driver's surprise as his vehicle rumbled due to Alpha leaping in at about the same time. "Whoa there! You are a rather heavy Nimbusian aren't ya? And that was a rather mighty leap you took there…"

Quickly remembering what he heard about Nimbusian's having poor jumping skills, a small sweat drop trickled down Commander Zeta's head obscured by the fluffiness of his cloudy "skin", and he had to piece together an excuse that would keep his cover from being blown instantly. "Umm…Well, I am so excited to be returning home after so long that it gave me the energy to perform one mighty jump!" Groaning in his mind after that excuse, Commander Zeta felt perfectly willing to slap himself hard on the forehead if it wasn't for the fact that this would completely blow his cover. To his surprise though, the driver laughed at his comment and said in response "Is that so? Well, I can actually believe that. Anyways, I got a schedule to keep up with, so we need to get a move on pronto!" After telling his passenger to buckle himself up with a seat belt just in case of turbulence, the Nimbusian driver pressed his right foot on the gas pedal and began to rise into the air ready to head off.

"_Thus we began our trip to Nimbus Land, which actually turned out to take quite a while despite the lack of wind in the area. I had to keep a tight grip on the fluffy seats below me simply because putting a seat belt on would, as mentioned many times, blow our cover. But eventually, our travels brought us to the mighty city in the sky, where the driver unknowingly let two non-Nimbusian passengers off onto the eastern part of the town. He said his goodbyes pleasantly, and drove away before he had a chance to notice my invisible feet imprinted into the cloudy ground. We turned around, and finally got to see for the very first time what Nimbus Land was truly like…"_

Lying on the expansive cloud in front of them was a bunch of simple, wood built huts with palm tree leaves acting as the rooftops for everything but the gorgeous, regal ruby palace on the northern part of the land. Everyone was walking around with a carefree smile on their faces, which Alpha couldn't decided if that made him feel sickened by or envious of them. "How can these Nimbusians be so happy when everyone else is suffering down below?" The young Goomba snarled quietly as a scowl appeared across his face. The inquiry took Commander Zeta off-guard, especially since he explicitly told his protégé's to cease all vocal expression until they reached the temple. Still, since no one was close enough to take notice besides him, the "Koopa" turned around to answer his question quickly before someone did end up appearing.

"Some people just like to live in ignorant bliss of the troubles going on around them. We can put some blame on them for choosing to live like that, but sometimes the state of the world doesn't offer them any other alternative…We can't all change the way things are, after all." After offering an explanation for the Nimbusian's behavior on their behalf, Commander Zeta turned back around as a sign to Alpha that nothing else should be said between them since a few of the citizens were walking within range of their voices. This just left the young Goomba to stand around and ponder his mentor's words as they walked around in search of the next temple. "This is quite odd…" Commander Zeta said to himself as a face for the citizens while in actuality speaking to his young companion.

"The temple should be around here somewhere, and yet…" Standing at the western edge of town to look around at the clouds in the immediate area, Commander Zeta notes the lack of any gigantic stone building and hums to himself about how suspicious this all was. "I know it should be around here somewhere, so why can't I find it?" It was then that the "Koopa" realized one of the major problems with coming here as a false Nimbusian: In order to keep their purpose a secret from prying ears, the Commander would be unable to speak to the citizens to get hints about any possible temple sightings as of recent days. This would have to be done entirely on his own, especially after what he asked Alpha to do for him during this tired period of time. Just as a quick confirmation, the Commander turned his head over his left shoulder and checked to make sure that Alpha's feet were still imprinted on the clouds.

Glad to see that no citizens have run into either of them, Zeta gets control of his thoughts long enough to focus on the device and make sure that he will keep to this form as they continue to walk around. The next step for the two heroes was to try and check the southern part of the massive cloud, but as they walk the nearby bell tower begins to ring to signify the dawn of high noon. Turning his head towards the bell tower to enjoy the sound of the ringing bell, Commander Zeta becomes completely oblivious to the distortions in the air beside him that draws forth a mighty stone temple away from its period of invisibility along with a path of clouds that would lead any welcome people towards its mystical confines.

"Commander…" Alpha whispered with his head turned towards the walkway in an attempt to alert his mentor of what had just appeared without letting anyone else know about his existence. With his tranquility broken for the time being, Commander Zeta grumbled to himself as he turned around and saw before him the temple that they had longed to discover. "Huh? This wasn't here when we showed up just a few moments ago…Guess that would suggest that this temple only shows up for a certain amount of time." Making a few notes inside of his mind, the Koopa reached for his pants pockets and hoped that even with the transformation he would still be able to use his clothes for the same purpose as before. Sure enough, he was able to pull out his cloaking gauntlet and attached it to his thinner arm. "Anyways, let me cloak myself so we can avoid whatever creature that is standing guard outside the temple, and lets hurry up before the temple vanishes…"

Activating the invisibility device while simultaneously placing his thoughts into the Duplighost Cloak in order to change back to normal. Once he does this, he takes the cloak off and puts it away into his trench coat. The two heroes then traverse the cloud trail, using their foot indents to keep track of where they are going as they get closer to their destination. It was weird to see solid clouds, but Commander Zeta quickly chalked it up to magic. Since they were trying to avoid detection by the creature guarding the temple now, Alpha still remained silent, a notion that was really hard for him to keep going through with as every second passed on by and his worries continued to grow.

The two heroes made it to the point a few feet away from the entrance, and stopped upon noticing a creature guarding it. It was a Lakitu with a rather wise, regal appearance that floated above both heroes with a dull expression on his face. He had not a care in the world, and seemed as though he didn't even realize that the temple had materialized into the physical world. With those distractions clear on his face, the two heroes attempted to sneak on by without their foot imprints being noticed. However, as they passed by underneath the Lakitu, they failed to notice him closing his eyelid in disappointment, and the moment they make it to the stone platform the creature says in a bored, condescending sort of voice "Just what do you two think you are doing?"

For obvious reasons, this caught the two off-guard, and they froze in place entirely as the creature turned around and lowered his cloud to be on eye level with the two heroes as they slowly spun their bodies around and looked at the Lakitu with a bit of concern in their invisible pupils. Commander Zeta tried to keep himself together though, for his protégé's sake. "How did you detect us?" He chose to ask. "I am the guardian of the Sky Temple…Because I am one with the air itself, I was able to detect it moving around your invisible bodies. Disregarding that in the first place, I also saw you walking along the clouds in a very obvious manner. Do you not wish to fight us outer guardians or something?"

"That would be a correct assumption…" Commander Zeta noted with a tint of uneasiness in his voice. "…Well, then you are making a wise decision without even realizing it." The Lakitu known as Skyus declared with a bit of careless relief in his voice. Naturally, this comment dulled the caution in both heroes' minds, as the Koopa found himself asking "What do you mean by that?" After all, this wasn't a chance he would likely get again to ask about the creatures guarding the outer parts of the temples. "From just a brief look at you two, without even seeing your full appearances, I can tell that neither of you have an elemental affinity. If either one of you were to defeat me or my brethren, then you would be inflicted with our curse and become a guardian of whatever temple you defeated them at until you are killed by someone with an elemental affinity or your curse is given to someone else."

"…" Silence was the only correct response towards the Lakitu's brief explanation of the guardian's curse, for any words would likely be brushed off by the fate accepting guardian. "So yeah…You can go on ahead into the temple, I will do nothing to stop you. But be warned, the next two guardians also have control over elements that would make it easy for them to detect you while you are invisible. You'll have to come up with ways to incapacitate them, since unconsciousness with a chance to wake up will invalidate the curse for a short time." With his last warning, Skyus turns away from the two heroes and looks out towards the open, fresh air around him and lets out a sigh. Commander Zeta and Alpha turn off their invisibility cloaks and begin to move towards the temple, but just a second before they are out of earshot of the guardian the Koopa says in a melancholy tone "…I'm sorry this happened to you." Leaving Skyus to think solemnly about his life and the pain this curse has brought him as he retreats towards the roof of the temple away from sight once more.

"_On that rather somber note, we entered the temple, the truth giving us a better idea of the big picture regarding the guardians while still leaving us with so many more disturbing, implicating questions about the Elemental Overlord's endeavors if he was the one responsible for this curse. Still, despite the questions plaguing both of our minds, I was still focused on the problems related to my emotions, yet I knew that it would be petty of me to bring them up after what just happened outside the temple. We walked for a bit until we saw a gap that had a door on the other side of it. With no visible way to cross it, Commander Zeta looked around until he saw a hidden passageway that led to a spiral walkway."_

"_Crossing up that walkway towards a long, suspended stone path, we continued onward while treading caution until we reached the halfway point of a massive cylindrical wind chamber with a lone button on the ground in front of us. Stepping on it created a rainbow colored bridge from the platform we stood on to the top floor of this chamber. We climbed it slowly, making certain not to be carried away by the rising breeze until we reached the very end of the bridge. At that point the doorway to the stone awaited us, and all this time Commander Zeta had come to notice my ever-present silence despite the fact that I had no reason to avoid talking now. Of course, while I too noted the strangeness of my mentor's silence, he was the first to say anything…"_

"Lesson Three: There is no such thing as a bad question. I know you've had something on your mind since this morning, and I'm truly sorry that circumstances have prevented me from acknowledging that fact…But we have a moment right now to speak, so-" "No we don't…" Alpha quickly interrupts, his head shifting away to avoid looking directly at his Commander in embarrassment. "You know as well as I do that we have a time limit for dealing with this temple…We can't risk spending time on my problems when both of our lives are at risk here." The young Goomba have an honest enough response, but it was not one that Commander Zeta liked even if he was right. "…Very well then." He said calmly with his eyelids closed and his body resisting the urge to sigh. Leaving the matter be for the moment, the two heroes turned back towards the tarp that led to the next room and passed through it without anything more than a gentle wave of the hand.

Now in a throne room with a rather ravaged appearance present on both the emerald bordered throne and the dark-red carpet that leads up to it, the two heroes notice the next stone resting on the seat along with a series of moss covered scriptures on the left wall beside them. However, the sunlight shining through the windows off to the right make it impossible to get a clear look at the scriptures even with the holes cut out between the different patches of moss. Without another word, Commander Zeta walked over to the stone and touched it with one finger held out and one hand tightly clenched behind his shell. A pale white glow covered the room in a matter of seconds, and the veil of moss and the wall began to tremble as a light breeze drew in from the windows.

Commander Zeta stepped back as the breeze kicked up its pace and became a howling gale that swirled into the center of the light and became one with the shadowy figure that stood behind it all. Sitting now on the throne as the light sank into his body was a silver wolf masked human with a rather average muscular build hidden behind his green and gold vest. He wore puffy, Japanese style pants along with miniature wind chimes on his ears and golden, magical bracelets on his arms and legs that seemed to tightly imprint themselves against his skin. But the guardian cared not about any pain brought on by what he chose to wear as he lifted his right hand into the air and drew forth a ruby rapier with a golden hilt from a gust of wind called forth by a simple whim.

"…Only two?" The human lifted his head up to count how many people were confronting him here today, only to express disappointment at the miniscule number of them that stood before his glazed stare. "After the last group of heroes that came to try and claim the Elemental Stone, I had assumed that such displays would become the standard…But I suppose I can't be picky. People both numerous and singular have wanted to claim the powers of my master throughout all these many years, and none of them have succeeded…However, whether you will suffer a terrible fate elsewhere or die at my hands now…" The guardian stood up, only to lean his entire body forward violently as a spiritual representation of his body pulses out from his back and he begins to growl, starting off with a struggle against his inner beast until it devolves into a rabid acceptance of what he truly was, and the grating, beastly maniacal laughter that soon followed heralded the coming of two violent yet massive walls of wind that decreased the maneuverability of everyone in the room as even a single touch of the blades would rend the skin from a person's body.

Having given in to his inner beast as per commanded by the mask he wore, the guardian lifted his body up and grinned wildly through that very mask, a small fang having grown out beside each of his front teeth as he snickered deeply at the two heroes that stood before him and started the battle off with a billowing howl and a firm swing of his arms beside him. "Come at me travelers, if you so wish for your end to become reality!" Boasting furiously as the two men standing before him, the guardian took his rapier and slash the air in front of him at such a precise junction that the cut created a swirling formation that spun around and around multiple times until it formed into a miniature tornado that was fully under his control.

With a gesture of his left hand, the guardian sent his creation against the heroes, standing still on the throne as he waits to see how they react to his first move. Commander Zeta, being the closest one to the tornado, leaps off to the side while turning his head towards the human standing in front of his throne. He tucks his right hand into his pocket and quickly draws his laser pistol to take a shot while the guardian seemed focused on the direction his tornado was going. Though as he stood on the ground positioned to fire he tilted his head to the left and saw Alpha standing perfectly still without a clue as to what he should do. Acting first on his concerns instead of towards the battle, Commander Zeta flipped his body around with the ends of his coat swinging in the breeze and fired a laser straight in front of the tornado's path.

Part of the carpet is instantly incinerated while the ground below has a hole blasted into it, which causes the tornado to sink in and become stuck temporarily due to how deep it is. The swirling winds just barely knick Alpha in the face, but this proves to be more than enough to snap him back into reality with a blink of the eyelids and realize that he was now in the midst of a battle after he had spent the last few minutes deep in thought about his problems. Leaping away from the tornado before the rotation of its bottom half allowed it to climb out and fly towards the tarp at the end of the room with its increased momentum, Alpha then turned towards the guardian with widened eyes and a beating heart as he threw his rapier through the air to try and impale the young Goomba through the skull.

Swiftly dodging the blade with a leap into the air so it can instead skewer the ground behind him, Alpha lands on the ground and hears the roaring of wind separate from the walls around him and realizes that the tornado was making a return trip. To combat this, Alpha leaps away to the right while Commander Zeta swings his arm towards the guardian and fires a precise laser shot straight into the right arm. The heat from the laser singes the flesh and creates a burning wound that makes the guardian flinch momentarily and rest his left hand against the damaged skin. During this time his focus is pulled away from the wind he controls, freezing the tornado temporarily and dispelling his rapier into the wind. "B-Bastard!" The human growled towards his assailant, who did in fact feel an ounce of guilt for bringing harm to the guardian in such a manner.

As such, he put his gun away for the time being and tried to think of an alternative method of harming the guardian, one that wouldn't torture the human with agonizing pain until the moment where he is defeated. In the interim between those moments though, Commander Zeta ran over to his young protégé and with a voice of panic he yelled out "GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF ALPHA!" In reference to the moment of mental weakness the Goomba expressed earlier. Turning his head towards his Commander, Alpha glared straight at him without any consideration spent towards the guardian standing in wait with his wound slowly healing up thanks to the magical properties of the stone he was born from. He had but one question on his mind at the moment, minutes spent weaving together so perfect in nature that the appropriate answer would dissolve all doubts in his mind and return his focus back towards their journey. With tears nearly coming from his eyes at the prospect that his mentor would speak incorrectly towards him, Alpha said out loud to him "Commander Zeta…Tell me right now…Would you still want someone as normally useless as me to stay with you on this journey if I could never use my arms ever again?"

Commander Zeta's ensuing reaction was to widen his eyes briefly while keeping a neutral expression on his face to make it so Alpha wouldn't believe that he was thinking one way or another. "Don't be silly Alpha…" "Huh?" Commander Zeta's words of understanding was followed up by his young protégé's remark of confusion. "I didn't want you to come with me because of the arms I gave you. Sure they may be powerful and will always have their uses in the midst of battle…But if that was the only reason I had then I would be nothing more than a empathy-less person using an amnesiac creature as a weapon for my own personal gain. No…I wanted you with me because of the qualities you displayed, especially the sympathy you felt towards those who have lost so much down below…Alpha, don't ever assume for even a second that you are useless just because of one mistimed moment of overconfidence. You recognized that mistake, and the guilt you felt because of it is normal yet not something that needs to be lingered on for long…In my opinion, recognizing your own faults makes you a much more worthy individual than those who claim to be flawless in their nature."

Commander Zeta turned his body sideways slightly and put a smile on his face and going quiet. Alpha stood for a few moments, waiting for something else to be said as he thought that perhaps there was more to his mentor's speech. But there wasn't, as evidenced by Commander Zeta saying quietly to his young protégé "End speech." "That was a lovely speech…Especially since because of it, you gave me enough time to recover!" Giving Alpha little time to take what was said into consideration, the guardian, with his healed up arm, roared back to life with grit in his voice as he howled mightily and with a gesture towards the wind walls he called back his rapier and brandishes it towards the two heroes mid-materialization. With the ruby blade's tip pointed at the young Goomba's heart, the guardian commands his tornado to thrust forward across the ground, tearing apart both the stone tile and the carpet as it makes its way towards Alpha to trap him in its swirling grasp.

From there, Commander Zeta knew that the guardian would fling his rapier at the tornado and command it to grind through Alpha's skin as if it were nothing. Taking off his trench coat at a furious pace and grabbing it by the edge of the right sleeve in order to pull it inward, Commander Zeta tucks himself into his shell after swinging his left hand straight into Alpha's face in order to brush him out of the way of the tornado's path. Being pulled into the tornado in his stationary state, Commander Zeta catches the guardian throwing his weapon inward to accomplish his task in spite of the multiple times that his body is spinning around uncontrollably. It is, however, this very same vision limiting occurrence that makes it difficult for the rapier to attack anything but the Koopa's hardened shell, and though a few scratches mar the surface of his back he is otherwise unharmed. Needless to say, this defense angered the guardian and caused him to snarl before gesturing with his left hand to make the tornado fling the Koopa right out towards the back wall.

Commander Zeta's collision with wall forces his head and limbs out of his shell, his body laying back against the cold, breezy stone while his head palpitates in pain due to how hard he was flung. "COMMANDER!" Alpha, finding himself now in a situation similar to what happened in the first tower, turned around to face the laughing guardian with eyebrows arched in anger. "Hahaha! I gave you a fair enough warning…Failure was always going to be the only option in your quest, and now you shall both perish because of it!" After unfolding his arms from his chest and containing his laughter, the guardian calmly gestured his right pointer finger towards the weakened Koopa, giving a mental command to his rapier to impale his desired target through the heart.

From the tornado the blade began to emerge, and with a nervous sweat trickling down his forehead Alpha leaps forward to try and intercept the sword's path. He pulled his right arm backwards, praying constantly towards his mechanical limbs to conjure up something that would save them yet again. He didn't want a cannon, he wanted something that could match and deflect the rapier from its guided course. With his body floating bravely in the air, Alpha's right arm began to transform, the fist retracting inward and replacing it with a small metallic barrel barely bigger than the tip of his thumb. But from that small tip shot forth a solidified blade of ionic energy, which despite his surprise Alpha quickly utilized by swinging it down upon the ruby blade that was inches away from his body. With enough force in his blow to knock the point of the rapier into the ground, Alpha had successfully protected his Commander once more from the enemy, his doubts shed from his mind as he lands on the ground and stares at the surprised guardian.

With his burning glare acting as the herald of the guardian's defeat, Alpha charges forth across the ground, his speed increased due to the decrease of weight in his arms. He had no reason to show mercy to the guardian after all that had happened, and with one clean thrust of his blade straight out in front of him Alpha pierced the human right through the heart. Blood sprayed out from the edge of the wound, a couple drops splattering against the young Goomba's face as the guardian takes one heavy exhale and his eyes begin to become pale and lifeless. The wind across the room fades away into nothingness along with the guardian's sword while Alpha keeps pressing his blade into the chest of the human until the moment he transforms back into the stone.

But as he stands there defeated, the guardian lowers his head down at the mercy of the position the sword has left him in and whispers into the ear of the Goomba "You…You think your victory means anything? …You have just stalled the inevitable conclusion to your futile quest…No one has obtained the seven stones before…Because the person who is meant to have them does not yet exist in this world…Heh, but my words won't stop you from continuing onward…I can see that now…But that doesn't matter anyways…You'll meet your end soon enough, and know now that you'll be shown no mercy by the wi-" His calm, foreboding voice fades out as his body converts to spiritual particles that seep back into the Elemental Stone, which falls gently onto the ground in front of the frozen Alpha.

With his arms reverting back to its normal state, Alpha lowers it to pick the stone up, caring not about the guardian's warning as he turns around and notices his Commander getting back on his feet, a bit wobbly from the blow to his body but otherwise completely unharmed. Walking over to Zeta, Alpha throws the stone and watches as he catches it without looking his way somehow. Lifting his head up to look his young, smiling protégé in the face, he stays quiet as Alpha opens his lips and says to him without so much as a hint of nervousness "…Thank you, Commander." Accepting his gracious remark with a nod of the head, Commander Zeta goes on to say "You did a good job once again Alpha…I really, really am proud of you here today." The two exchange a silent glance followed by a light chuckle at each other, and once the Koopa has put his trench coat back on the two heroes make their way for the exit so they can escape the temple before it fades away like the wind that continues to blow through the melancholy room…

_To be continued…_


	7. Chapter 6: Brothers New and Old

"_Three guardians had now been defeated, and we were making great progress towards the completion of our journey. We exited the Sky Temple, just glad to be feeling well after everything that has happened thus far. But as we moved across the clouds to head back to Nimbus Land while making ourselves disguised and invisible, I turned back around and looked above the rooftop to see the outer guardian staring down upon us with a look of sorrow on his face. He then turned away, as did I so I could look at my arms and think about what the guardian said about the curse of the outer guardians where I then began to relate it to the mechanical limbs that were attached to my body and said something rather uncharacteristically towards my mentor…"_

"Would these arms of mine be considered a blessing, or a curse?" Commander Zeta, having not fully put the Duplighost Cloak on, overheard his young protégé's inquiry and turned his head to ask him "What suddenly brought this on?" His voice was quiet yet at the same time he showed that he was ready to try and help his companion out. "I-I'm just thinking about what that Lakitu said…And suddenly I thought of my arms as a curse…" Realizing how ridiculous his sentence sounded, Alpha shook his head and folded his arms behind his body to get them out of the mind, saying with his head tilted towards the cloudy ground to the right of him. "N-Never mind Commander…It was silly of me to bring it up."

However, the Commander did not share his protégé's sentiments on the subject, and with his head turned straight ahead once more he says in bold "What does it matter if its a blessing or a curse? Both give you things that many others would only dream of having, and the only thing that can inhibit the use of a curse is your own anxiety and anger towards it. In other words, don't hate what you assume to be a curse…Adapt to it, and make it your own power…" With his sentence at an end, the Commander pulls the hood over his head and activates it with a thought to transform himself back into a Nimbusian, while the invisible Alpha is allowed to stand still and take in what was said in once more.

"…Thank you for that, Commander." Alpha says in appreciation of his mentor's little speech. "Always glad to be of help to you, Alpha." Commander Zeta says quietly in response. From then on out, Alpha understood what needed to be done in order to keep their cover sound. Zipping his lips up tightly to avoid being detected, he stayed beside his disguised Commander as they finally leave the cloud path behind as it dissipates into a foggy mixture alongside the temple. Wondering what happened to the lone outer guardian after his guarding spot had vanished, Alpha was quickly broken out of that train of thought by Commander Zeta saying to him in such a way that everyone else would think he was speaking to himself "Alright, time to go catch a ride on one of the taxis."

Keeping up with the "Koopa" as he made his way to the point where the taxi let them off last time, Alpha dutifully kept himself silent as he looked around and saw the Nimbusians enjoying themselves without any care spent towards the disappearing temple. Though if the temples had been around for a very long time, it would be easy to see that the disappearing/reappearing act would just simply be part of their daily routine. "Sir, if I may be so kind as to ask for another ride…" Once again snapped away from his train of thought, Alpha turns his head and looks at his Commander, who is speaking to the driver in a rather posh tone of voice. "I wish to go to a certain island far off the coast of Toad Town now, you see."

"An island? Not very specific there are we now?" The driver notes with a tint of joking sarcasm in his voice. "Quite true, honestly…But do not worry, I have the island's location memorized in my head. If you would just pilot your aerodynamic vehicle with much care, I would gladly guide you there…And your payment shall be quite immense." Speaking with a particular allure in his voice for that last line, Commander Zeta has certainly assured the attention of the driver. "Hmm…" Even so, the driver had to think about the offer for a few brief moments, his left hand rested against his chin as he looks into the sky and hums to himself. "Alright, alright…You got yourself a deal." The driver says, caring not about how unfamiliar the Nimbusian in front of him looked when money was on the way for him.

"Thank you very much then…" With subtle appreciation towards the Nimbusian for his agreement, Commander Zeta leaped onto the vehicle alongside his young protégé, and having gotten used to the shaking of his taxi from the last time the driver simply nods his head and lets out a light chuckle before adjusting his hands on the wheel to the 10 and 2 positions. With a quiet whisper of the engines signifying its activation, the taxi cab rises into the air and turns to the left, and within seconds it moves forward away from the mass of clouds and descends towards the ground below. Alpha turns his head back around and says goodbye to the city of Nimbus Land with a quiet enough sigh and a shake of his head.

"_Thus began our flight to the Lightning Palace…From here on out I'm going to skip over the description of our trips inside the temples unless something different comes up, since this was about the point where you joined Mario and his friends, Gemini. Anyways, after an hour or so of flying we ended up above Toad Town, where Commander Zeta then guided the driver towards the sea and beyond, our path leading us straight ahead towards a lone island with thunder clouds looming over the next temple. Needless to say, the driver truly grew curious of his passenger's purpose here, but Commander Zeta simply drew the appropriate amount of gold coins out from his "pockets" and said that more would waiting for him if he returns here in about an hour's time. Agreeing to those terms, the driver grinned and flew off with coins rattling in his vehicle."_

"Why exactly have you been carrying around that much money?" Alpha asks as he uncloaks himself and folds his arms behind his back with one eyebrow raised towards his Commander. "Just in case we needed to barter with anyone to get around without raising suspicion…Speaking of which, you should really put that cloak back on for a few moments." Speaking with a gesture towards the sky, Commander Zeta pulls his hood off to deactivate his disguise while quickly putting his gauntlet on and cloaking himself as a patrol of Doomships flies by high above. Noticing them, Alpha quickly goes back to being invisible and stands still for a few seconds until the patrol vanished from view. As both heroes turn back to normal Commander Zeta puts his Duplighost Cloak away and spins his body around towards the staircase leading up to the temple.

"Thankfully, the thunder clouds above the temple should hide us from anymore patrols assuming we end up sticking around long enough for them to fly by again." Commander Zeta then remembers what the guardian of the temple in the sky said, and turns towards his young protégé with a stern look in his eyes. "Alpha, remember that we can't sneak by the guardian this time…" He says in order to remind him in case other thoughts had made him forget what was said. He then gestured towards the thunderclouds while keeping his left hand held inside of his trench coat pocket. "Take a gander at the clouds and tell me what element you think this temple is meant to represent…" Looking up at the clouds and making a guess immediately, Alpha lowers his eyelids slightly and shrugs his shoulders out of confusion over why his Commander wanted to figure out such an obvious answer.

"Electricity, clearly…" He said without much interest in the topic. "Correct. Our cloaking devices run off the electricity flowing within the wires underneath, so the guardian standing outside the temple should be able to detect the flowing electrons…But don't worry, assuming the guardian has any flesh on his person, I should be able to take care of them without killing them and activating the curse…" With a pull of his hand from the coat, Commander Zeta reveals a small mechanized blowgun that can be activated by blowing from the back end, just like a normal version of it would work. He keeps the gun gripped between two of his fingers, holding it beside his shell as he gestures behind himself for Alpha to follow him up the stairway.

But the young Goomba couldn't shake off this uneasy feeling that was currently plaguing his mind, as if something was going to happen up top, but he didn't know just what it would be. The Commander didn't ask him to do anything during this next part, which was rather strange considering how often he has said something during their rather short past together. As the two heroes moved up the staircase, that feeling in Alpha's mind refused to go away, leaving him with no other choice but to try and ease himself by saying in his head repeatedly "Everything will be fine…" While closing his eyelids and taking in a deep breath. At the end of his mantra, Alpha said quietly "Commander Zeta can handle this, I know he can…"

The timing of the end of his reassuring spiel was all too perfect, for the two heroes arrived at the top of the staircase, and the ensuing area is discovered to be covered in a light veil of fog. The whirring allure of static spun throughout the air, a worrisome sign that the guardian could likely use the air around him as a weapon if he so wished. But if Commander Zeta truly has a grip on the situation, Alpha thought, then perhaps it won't come to the two of them having to deal with such an issue. The Koopa froze in place upon hearing a single step being taken by someone other than him and his young protégé. With a hand held out beside him to get Alpha to stop in place, Commander Zeta looked forward through the veil of fog and saw a rather peculiar figure walking towards them.

Whoever it was, from the outline alone the two of them could tell that they were rather buff in demeanor, their height being two times that of Commander Zeta alone. "Its been a few months since I've had any company around here!" A boisterous voice hollers out from the thicket of fog as they take two steps forward and their image becomes much clearer. He was a massive, muscular Koopa whose shell had been shed long ago and replaced with metallic belts that were strapped tightly around multiple parts of his body. The Koopa had a cocky sneer on his face as bits of electricity spun around his form. He looked down condescendingly at the two heroes, and suddenly Commander Zeta just froze in place upon looking at him. "Well well, I was not expecting a couple of midgets to fight me today!"

Even though an easy shot could have been made with the tranquilizer while the guardian was busy trash talking, Commander Zeta did nothing of the sort much to Alpha's concern as he instead looked up at the buff Koopa and said in a tone of utter disbelief "B-Brother?" Said remark took Alpha off-guard, especially when he quickly shifted his eyes back and forth between both Koopas can found it incredibly difficult to believe that Commander Zeta could recognize the hulking guardian as anything other than the monster he was now. Apparently, the guardian shared the same line of thinking as the young Goomba, for he guffawed at Zeta's remark and said with a bit of dry humor towards it "Brother? You actually think you are comparable to me in anything besides your species, runt?"

Despite the guardian's insistence towards the contrary, the more Commander Zeta looked into his eyes the more he saw his brother's normal face reflected back at him. It was excruciatingly painful to look at the guardian without thinking back to the past and the wonderful times the two of them once shared. Zeta remembers how a year or so back his brother departed to try and find a way to stop Balroc, but after months with no word from him in any way shape or form it was generally assumed that the tyrant had gotten to him and killed him. That was always one of Commander Zeta's primary motivations for creating the M.S.I….Having known the pain of a loss close to his heart because of the monster's bloody rampages, Zeta felt as though he knew what everyone else was feeling in regards to these troubled times, and thus vowed to either reduce or end the suffering as much as physically possible in the name of his brother.

But now he may be standing before him, his mind and body overtaken by a wicked curse of the Elemental Overlord's doing that had robbed him of all those precious memories and turned him into an electricity spewing brute. If this was truly his brother, Commander Zeta thus thought, then how could he knock him unconscious and leave him here as he goes away from the temple upon acquiring the stone. No matter the origin of the curse, there had to be some morally ethical way to remove it without having it spread to another host or killing the body itself… "No, I can't detract from my current goals…" Commander Zeta let out a melancholy sigh as the grave truth of the situation came crashing down upon him.

He had no choice in the matter, he couldn't risk attempting to do something for this creature that may be his brother without blowing his cover. With a sweat drop trickling down the side of his head for the first time in a long way due to an overload of stress inside of his body, Commander Zeta grit his teeth and slowly began to lift the blowgun up to his face, his hand trembling as the guardian looks down at him and says with much arrogance "What is that puny, straw-like object supposed to do? You can't hurt me with such an item you fool!" Being the only one with knowledge of who this guardian might have once been, those words carried a harsher meaning for Commander Zeta than they would for anyone else in the universe. But he felt that he needed to offer a rebuttal towards them, for perhaps even with his mind now bestial in nature his stern words will cause the gargantuan Koopa to remember enough of their past to feel guilt for his own words as he falls to the ground unconscious.

"You're right…" As the blowgun rose until it was only one inch away from his lips, Commander Zeta took one last look at the guardian and said in a surprisingly somber tone considering his usual behavior "The only person I can hurt with this is myself, brother…" With those final words the gigantic, muscular Koopa's eyes widen momentarily, as if the real being trapped behind the veil of insanity broke through in response to what his brother had said to him. But the gleam in his eyes lasts but a moment as the guardian's curse retakes that which it had earned and prepares to lunge forward, only for it to turn out that in the interval between control of the body Commander Zeta had shot a metallic dart into the chest of the guardian, where a sleeping medication powerful enough to unknowingly knock an Elephant unconscious for an hour is injected into the Koopa's veins.

With his eyelids immediately becoming heavy with the feeling of unconsciousness, the massive guardian tries to lean forward with his left hand out to reach for the two heroes, the electricity around his hand slowly fizzling out until he has no voltage left inside of him to activate for harmful purposes. Pulling his body back through the air, the Koopa's eyelids shut gently and he falls backwards onto the ground with a mighty thud while Commander Zeta looks with guilt in his watering pupils at his brother's fallen body, his hand stuffing the blowgun away where it rightfully belongs before he is spoken to by his young protégé "…Commander, that was your brother?" "Yes…It used to be him, anyways." Zeta replied with much regret in his voice towards what he had to do.

"…W-What happened to him?" Alpha knew that the matter was likely a sore subject based off of Commander Zeta's shift into a melancholy mood, but remembering how much better he felt when he spoke of his emotional issues to his mentor before he had hoped that the same would hold true if the sides were reversed. "He was taken by the curse, obviously, but I do have to wonder why he came here specifically in the first place…The last time I saw him…Was when he departed from my old home with a vow that he would break the cycle of merciless stagnation covering Plit…I've never really told you about my parents before, have I now?" Turning his head slightly to the left to look over his shoulder, Commander Zeta then followed through with the rest of his body and continued on with what he was saying.

"Considering my beliefs, I bet you would find it difficult to comprehend the fact that our parents are actually supporters of that monstrous tyrant. It was because of that very support and the…rather cruel ways they tried to make us stick to those beliefs, that me and my brother moved away from our homes and gave ourselves different names in order to avoid being found by them as traitors of the Koopa Clan. Not long after that though, my brother left as I mentioned before, and I never saw or heard from him again…That's when I decided to make the M.S.I….Perhaps because I was inspired by him, the organization ended up sharing the same first letters as those seen in my brother's full name…Marcus Sheldon Ichabod. But now that my brother has succumbed to the Elemental Overlord's insane little curse, there is nothing that can be done to save him I feel…Which means that to me, my family is all but dead…"

But despite Commander Zeta's gloomy outlook on what has happened to his family, Alpha merely shakes his head, finding such comments to be untrue in their nature. "No Commander…You still have me. I can never measure up to what your blood brother was like, but that doesn't matter to me in the slightest so long as my existence means that you'll still have some semblance of a family left in this world." It was a brave, if rather quietly put together speech from the young Goomba, and he did not back down on his vow to be Zeta's new brother despite how much he stared into his eyes and felt an urge to nervously look away welling up inside of him. He kept himself calm with a steady breath, but stopped when Commander Zeta mustered up the will to smile and laughed gently towards himself. "Hahaha…You know what Alpha? It would be silly of me to refuse that offer…Thank you very much for wanting to be here for me, in a way you are paying me back for the few if but important times I have helped you out over the last couple of days…"

Taking his left hand forward and patting Alpha on the shoulder to express honest thanks for his offer, Commander Zeta tilts his head and closes his eyelids to further express the happiness he is feeling deep down, though unbeknownst to his young protégé he was trying to fight back the joyous tears brought on by the sudden switch in emotions. But the fact that Alpha could feel Zeta trembling as he kept a grip on his mechanical arm told him enough about what he was truly feeling. However, the subject was dropped as the Koopa turned around and reminded his young protégé of an easily forgotten factoid "We have to get through this temple before the tranquilizer wears off…I don't want to have to see this guardian awake again…Cause his existence is a constant reminder of the fact that there will someone that I'll never be able to save." With his right fist clenched in melancholy, Commander Zeta takes one last glance at the fallen guardian and moves towards the temple with Alpha close behind.

"_With that rather revealing episode outside the Lightning Palace, the two of us trekked through the temple, solving the puzzles and dealing with the perilous traps that awaited us along the way. We kept quiet for the most part to concentrate on what was ahead of us, and in a matter of minutes we made it to the rooftop that was clearer than we could possibly have imagined it to be considered the elemental theme. At the end of the roof was a gigantic generator with the next Elemental Stone on top of it…Commander Zeta went over to it and touched it to summon forth the guardian, the Lightning Djinn. Though we were expecting another fight similar to the other three, we were instead surprised by what he wanted to do with us…"_

"I wish to play a game of chess with you two particular individuals." The Djinn says with a twirl of his staff and a regal tone in his voice. "Chess?" Commander Zeta expresses confusion while rubbing his chin with his right hand, not because he was unfamiliar with the game but rather because he couldn't understand why the guardian wished to take part in such activities. "Why do you not wish to fight us?" "What point is there in senseless violence when a battle of wits can also decide an appropriate victor? Besides, chess is a fitting game to play for one of lightning thinking such as myself, and if you cannot keep up with my swift moves and perilous decisions then you are truly not worth of the stones of the Elemental Overlord now are you?"

"A point well-taken…Very well then, we accept your challenge, guardian." Commander Zeta politely declared. Thus, with a wave of the Djinn's staff, a bright light flushes through the air, transforming the broken tiles on the floor below into a pristine black and white chessboard with all the pieces arranged across four of the eight rows. The Djinn is on his generator acting as the King piece while metallic copies of Commnader Zeta and Alpha act as his bishops. Our two heroes are the King and right Rook on the board respectively. The heroes' chess pieces are white, while the Djinn's are black. Pointing out the reason behind the chosen colors, the guardian raises his staff into the air and says with vigor "Thus the sides are rightfully chosen…I, who rests on the pedestal of antagonism, oppose you the dutiful protagonists in this grand tale, and only by toppling me can your bodies even hope to advance to the next chapter of your journey!"

As the Djinn weaved together a wonderful speech about the stakes in this battle, Commander Zeta turned towards his young protégé and saw him trembling slightly, perhaps out of nervousness for the game they are playing. "Do you know how to play chess?" He asked in a gentle tone. Alpha shifted his head to the left with a blink of his eyelids and a quick nod to confirm that he knew. But he had his something else on his mind that was related to the game… "Commander…I-Is it alright though if you guide all the pieces? I don't want you to put our fates in my hands when I only remember the bare basics of this game…" "That's fine with me. Just focus on controlling your own movements and I'll handle everything else." With a turn back towards his competition, the Commander makes his first move…

**(Author's Note: From here on out, I'm going to be showing how the moves play out by mentioning the coordinates as seen on an actually chessboard that I have beside me as I write this. So the rows go for A to H the spaces from 1 to 8. To make things easier to understand, A is the row Commander Zeta and Alpha are on while the Lightning Djinn is on row H. The left Rook is standing on A1, while the right enemy Rook from Zeta's PoV is on H8. If you do not have a chess board of your own, feel free to look one up online to easily follow along. Or don't, its all up to you. I'm just trying to make this chess game a little easier to follow than the one in Part 1.)**

-B4 Pawn to D4

-G5 Pawn to E5

-A7 Knight to C6

-H6 Bishop to F4

-B8 Pawn to D8

-H7 Knight to F6

-C6 Knight to E5 (Capture Pawn)

-G1 Pawn to E1

-A8 Alpha to C8

-F6 Knight to E4

-B5 Pawn to C5

-F4 Bishop to G5

-A6 Bishop to D3

-E4 Knight to D2

-B1 Pawn to C1

-D2 Knight to F1

-D3 Bishop to G6 (Capture Pawn. Check)

-H5 King to H6

-G6 Bishop to E8

-G5 Bishop to F6

-C8 Alpha to C6

-H6 King to H7

-E8 Bishop to G6 (Check)

-H6 King to H7

-G6 Bishop to C2

-G3 Pawn to E3

-D8 Pawn to E8

-G4 Pawn to E4

-C2 Bishop to E4 (Pawn Captured)

-H4 Queen to E4 (Bishop Captured)

-E5 Knight to D7

-H3 Bishop to D7 (Knight Captured)

-C6 Alpha to C7

-E3 Pawn to D4 (Pawn Captured)

-B6 Pawn to C6

-D7 Bishop to G4

-C5 Pawn to D4 (Pawn Captured)

-F6 Bishop to D4 (Pawn Captured)

-C1 Pawn to D1

-F1 Knight to D2

-B3 Pawn to C3

-D4 Bishop to C3 (Pawn Captured)

-B2 Pawn to C3 (Bishop Captured)

-D2 Knight to C4 (Check)

-A5 Zeta to B5

-C4 Knight to A3 (Bishop Captured. Check)

-A4 Queen to A3 (Knight Captured)

-G4 Bishop to D1 (Pawn Captured)

-A1 Rook to D1 (Bishop Captured)

-H6 King to H5

-D1 Rook to E1 (Pawn Captured)

-E4 Queen to E1 (Rook Captured)

-C3 Pawn to D3

-H2 Knight to F3

-C6 Pawn to D6

-G8 Pawn to F8

-A2 Knight to C1

-H8 Rook to H6

-D3 Pawn to E3

-F3 Knight to E5

-D6 Pawn to E5 (Knight Captured)

-E1 Queen to G3

-E3 Pawn to F3

-G3 Queen to E5 (Pawn Captured. Check)

-B5 Zeta to B4

-G7 Pawn to F7

-F3 Pawn to G2 (Pawn Captured)

-H1 Rook to C1 (Knight Captured)

-C7 Alpha to C1 (Rook Captured)

-F7 Pawn to E8 (Pawn Captured)

-H6 Rook to H7

-A3 Queen to A7

-E8 Pawn to D8

-C1 Alpha to C5

"…Alpha, what are you doing?" Commander Zeta, after minutes of careful calculations and well-placed moves, is surprised by Alpha's sudden decision to stand one space diagonally away from him, right in front of the movement zone of the enemy's Queen. Turning his head around to look at his mentor without any hesitation in his eyes, the young Goomba says with a whisper "Don't worry Commander, I know what I am doing…Just please tell me that you know what I am doing…" Alpha turned back around, facing the Djinn as Commander Zeta looks over to him and notices a nervous, if tiny, sweat drop trickling down the petite guardian's forehead. Wondering just why he was acting this way, Zeta looked over the chessboard to re-evaluate the moves he has made up until this point.

It was at the end of it all that Zeta widened his eyes and realized how brilliant Alpha's move truly was. With the way Alpha just placed himself, the Djinn couldn't do anything with his Queen piece without it getting captured or forcing himself into a checkmate. But its not just the removal of his most powerful piece that worried the Commander. For the last few moves his Queen had been cutting off his farthest pawn from making it to the end of the board, which would prevent him from promoting it into a stronger piece to make the battle more difficult. So really, there was only one move the Djinn could make that would offer some benefit to him in exchange for the loss of his Queen, and Alpha made his move knowing full well what would happen next…

-E5 Queen to C5 (Alpha Captured. Check)

The act of Alpha being captured was swift yet gruesome. The Queen piece rose into the air like a readied guillotine, yet slammed down upon the Goomba with enough force that it was as if he was nothing more than a fly waiting to be slaughtered. The ensuing cloud of spiritual particles that flew out of the kid's body as the piece landed on the black tile caused Commander Zeta to flinch momentarily in guilt, for this action happened so soon after Alpha's vow to be his new brother that it was almost too much for him to bear. But despite the sadness piling up inside of his heart and eyes, Commander Zeta knew what he had to do in order to win the game from here on out.

-B4 Zeta to C5 (Queen Captured)

The way Zeta captured the Queen displayed a tranquil sense of furious vengeance as he reached for his trench coat and pulled out his laser pistol, the intensity of the shot increased tenfold with a push of the side lever and a light pull of the trigger, and when the laser collided with the chest of the piece it only took seconds for the energy to overload the structure of the object and with the cracks glowing red as a signal of imminent destruction it only took one second more for the Queen Piece to explode and its piece to scatter across the board as the Commander took one calm step forward to the place he needed to be now that the capture was complete. Then he turned towards the nervous Djinn and waited for him to continue.

-…H5 King to G4

-A7 Queen to A4 (Check)

-G4 King to G5

-A4 Queen to E4

-H7 Rook to B7

-G2 Pawn to H2 (Promotion: Alpha)

As the Pawn stepped onto the end of the board, it quickly rose into the air with a glowing light surrounding it as it spun around multiple times and slowly transformed into something different. Through the bright, pale glow Commander Zeta recognizes the figure that was appearing inside of it through the shadow and when everything was all said and done and the light faded away who else would drop back onto the ground but the real Alpha, brought back into the game to replace the Pawn who got to the end of the board through Zeta's commands. As his young protégé looks at his hands to affirm his revival, Zeta looks over to the Djinn and declares in bold "Alright, time for us to end this!"

-…D8 Pawn to C8

-H2 Alpha to G2 (Check)

-G5 King to H5

-E4 Queen to F5 (Check)

-H5 King to H4

-F5 Queen to G5 (Check)

-…H4 King to H3

-G5 Queen to G4 (Checkmate)

The game was thus over, the Djinn having to fully accept that fact as his Generator crumbled silently beneath his stout body and the battleground reverted back into its normal state of existence. As his body weakly fell to the ground it began to convert into the spiritual particles that would seep into the Elemental Stone and allow him to rest once again. But before he left this world, he had one thing to say to the heroes "Well played…Gentlemen…" Showing that there were no hard feelings towards them despite how outplayed he was in the game of his choosing. The stone landed on the ground, and seeing as Alpha was the closest to it he picked it up and turned towards his Commander.

With the spoils of their victory now in their possession, the two heroes had reached the halfway point of their journey, and though they knew not what challenges awaited them at the last three temples they knew full well that if they worked together through each and every one of them they would survive…As for what would happen after that, the two of them had no idea about save for the fact that they would be able to deal with the tyrant once and for all. With a proud smile on his face, Commander Zeta accepted the Elemental Stone from his young protégé and said to him in a calm tone of voice "Alpha, once again I can accredit this victory of ours to your efforts…And it makes me proud to be able to do so…" With his words of praise bringing a smile and a chuckle from Alpha's face, the two heroes then remembered the time limit they were on and quickly went on their way so they could make it to the edge of the island in time to meet up with the taxi driver…

_To be continued…_


	8. Chapter 7: Drill Golem Onyx

"…_.I'm sorry for what I did Alpha." "What are you talking about Gemini?" "I killed Zeta's brother when I helped Mario and the others at the Lightning Palace, and I didn't even know it at the time either…" "You really would've had no way of knowing about it…To be fair, it was a mercy kill, since there is really no way to undo the guardian curse…But thank you for admitting that, and I do wish to be honest here in pointing out that I should have perhaps said something since I knew what temple you were going to. The past is the past though, and we can't do anything to change it now…We can only work to prevent those same mistakes from happening in the future…" "Heh, thanks for that Commander." "My pleasure Gemini…Now then, where did I last leave off at?"_

"_Ah, I remember. So after acquiring the Lightning Stone, we left behind the chessboard where our mighty game had ended and traverse back through the temple until we reached the entrance. Commander Zeta prepared himself ahead of time for the meeting with the Taxi Driver by putting on the Duplighost Cloak and transforming into a Nimbusian. He took one last glance at his unconscious brother, saying nothing before he continued with the then invisible me down the staircase where the Taxi had just flown in to pick us up. Giving the driver a hefty sum of coins for his services, Commander Zeta asked for one more trip over to our next destination…"_

"Moleville, eh?" The driver asks with a bit of grumbling hesitation, for he, like many Nimbusians during this era, disliked the Moles for being their polar opposites in everything from taste, clothes and living quarters. In response to the disgruntled voice, Commander Zeta slips into his pockets and pulls out another bag of coins, casually flinging it into the vehicle so when it lands on the seat the lip expands outward and reveals the plethora of golden pieces that lie within. The sparkle of gold reflecting in the driver's glazed eyelids signifies that Zeta's bribe has successfully gotten the driver to discard his discrimination against the Moles for the moment just to satiate his own greed. The behavior of the real Nimbusian as he digs his hands into the gold and brings it close to his face to smell it for a few seconds greatly disgusts Alpha, and the young Goomba wonders just why his Commander can look at that and not react in a similar manner.

"Alright you two, hope on in and I'll take you to that hellho-I mean, destination." Cracking a false smile in hopes that the two heroes would forget what he was about to call Moleville, the driver repositions himself so his hands are on the wheel while Alpha and Zeta leap onto the vehicle and take off into the clear skies above. Considering the red hue slowly appearing at the edge of their vision, the two heroes knew that this next temple would be their last for the day, which was a sentiment they both found rather calming considering everything that has happened thus far. Before they go too far ahead, Commander Zeta turns his head around and sees lightning sparking around the temple along with a powerful yet anguished boom of thunder, something that the "Koopa" sighs about in sadness as he leaves his brother behind for good…

"_So our flight to Moleville began on a rather melancholy note, but I gently patted my mentor/brother to help him feel a bit better without making a noise to alert the driver of my presence. Thankfully, our trip started after another patrol by the Doomships, and it took us only fifty minutes to reach the outskirts of Moleville, where Commander Zeta noted that we would no longer require the driver's services. Thanking us both, albeit my part was on accident, for the money, the driver flew off to parts unknown. Commander Zeta took off the Duplighost Cloak for what would be the final time during our journey, and much to my surprise he said to me…"_

"Turn off your invisibility device, we won't be needing to keep our appearance scarce here." The Koopa says with a gesture of the hands behind his shell and a smile on his face as he breathes in the fresh mountain air and looks ahead at the busy populace of moles. Alpha shuts the invisibility cloak off and raises an eyebrow in bewilderment. "What's going on Commander? What happened to keeping our appearances a secret from everyone besides the guys at Toad Town?" The young Goomba inquires, and after a brief turn of the head Commander Zeta follows through with the rest of his body and looks his protégé in the eyes. "We have no reason to worry about that here. The Moles, unlike the Nimbusians up above, are more or less on our side…Well, unless we were fugitives on the run from the tyrant, in which case they would refuse to offer us any hospitality."

"…But didn't you mention something about your parents being absolutely loyal to the tyrant? Wouldn't they have ratted you out the moment you and your brother left?" "Hmmm…Yes, they likely would have now that you mention it." Commander Zeta takes the revelation in a rather light hearted manner, as he rubs his right hand against his chin and looks towards the sky before pointing something out to his short sighted protégé "Of course, if you take into consideration such information for a moment, don't you find it strange that there are no wanted posters out there for me?" Thus it was time for Alpha to stand still and rub his chin in thought as he looked back at the few cities the two of them have traversed and realizes that yes, no "Wanted" posters had been set up for Commander Zeta.

"More than likely, the tyrant considers my parent's personal issues to be far, FAR beneath him in importance…Not to mention I haven't really done much to interfere with Balroc's affairs besides save a few people at locations he has attacked." "Fair enough Commander…" Alpha submits to the point Zeta brought to his attention and folds his arms behind his back with a creak ringing from the elbows. The two heroes turn around and slowly make their way into town, where it takes only a few seconds for one of the Moles, whose height is only a few inches below Zeta's yet a couple above Alpha's, to approach them and say with a cheerful whistle at the end of his sentence "Howdy travelers, and welcome to Moleville!"

"A pleasure to meet you good sir." Commander Zeta says in a particular delicate yet suave tone as he bows his head and crosses his left arm in front of his chest. Beside him, Alpha waves his hand outward with a barely noticeable hint of nervousness and says to join in on the introduction "Hello…" The Koopa lifts his body up straight and lets out a cough to give himself a moment to correct his overly suave tone of voice and bring it down to more reasonable levels of politeness. "So, what brings you two here to our humble city?" The Mole asks in the interim between both events. "We are…Ummm, we are…" Alpha tries to provide an explanation for why they were there, but finds that he was never told just where the next temple is. So with an unsuspicious turn of the head towards his Commander he hopes that he can take care of this situation for him just this once.

"We have come to explore your deserts in search of a rare form of life…Perhaps you have heard rumors of it? it's a carnivorous creature that swims through the sand as if it were water, only to pop out sometimes as a boney Shark to devour its prey, or other times as a Cheep Cheep with a shark fin in order to deceive its inevitable victims. So mysterious is this creature, that it doesn't even have a name…" "That was a rather long-winded explanation…" The Mole admitted with a bit of chuckle in his voice. One shouldn't have been deceived by his words though, for deep down he really enjoyed listening to Commander Zeta even if he did trail on for a bit long. "But I see what you are wanting to do here. Basically, you are animal watchers? Well, if you wish to go to the desert, perhaps you should have brought along some form of protection…"

The Mole turns his body and points towards the vast desert beyond the northern outskirts of town, where a storm of sand rages on, contained within a specific area despite logic dictating that it should be spreading out into town. Naturally, Commander Zeta takes note of this and begins cooking up theories as to why this event is occurring. "How often do these storms happen?" He asks to try and pry some more information out. "Only during the day, usually after the sun rises…Don't know anything about the predator cycles of the creature you are seeking out, but if you want my advice, perhaps you should stick around town until night falls before adventuring out."

"Don't worry, we will be able to handle ourselves just fine." Commander Zeta notes before Alpha can take the Mole up on his offer. "Though if you would be so kind as allow us to take up residence when we come back later, we would be most appreciative of that." Perplexed by how calm the Koopa was acting despite the look in his eyes that told him that he knew of the dangers the storm could bring to his vision, the Mole merely shrugged his shoulders and said with an acceptance of his decision "Suit yourself sir, but please be careful out there, I don't want to find two skeletons buried in the sand later down the road…" With his grim remark, the Mole left the two heroes be and dashed off to take care of some random business for today, leaving Alpha to turn to his brother with bewildered eyes and say with a harsh whisper in his voice "Are you crazy Commander?! We can't make it to the temple in the middle of this storm, our eyes won't be able to handle all of that sand!"

"Yeah they will, especially if we wear protection." With a draw of his left hand from beside trench coat pocket, the Koopa flings over to Alpha the night vision goggles that the two of them had worn not too long ago. Letting them lay out across his metallic palms, the young Goomba looks at them for a moment before lifting his head up and saying to his Commander with a tone of embarrassing admission "Heh…I completely forgot about these…" He chuckles, cracking a small smile at a mistake that Commander Zeta also found a bit of humor in, and he avoided laughing in an insulting manner. "Yeah, with how thick the sand will be we should likely have no problem seeing through it all so long as we keep our eyes peeled. The glass is slick enough that none of the grains should stick, so all we need to do beyond that is keep from inhaling sand through our mouths…Though I suppose that should have been obvious enough, right?"

Gesturing towards his young protégé with his right hand while pulling out another pair of goggles with his left, Commander Zeta turns and smiles as Alpha nods and begins to wrap his goggles around his head. "You know…I've actually been meaning to ask you something for a while now. What's up with your trench coat? Those pockets can't possibly be deep enough to carry all the stuff that you pull out and put into it…" Noting the improbability of Zeta's wardrobe, Alpha finishes putting the goggles on and watches as his mentor turns towards him and pulls his right hand from one of his pockets. "No, you are right…A normal trench coat wouldn't be able to carry around all the stuff I have in them. That would prove to be a rather big burden for me while I'm on duty, especially if an unknown factor came into play and I needed some device or weapon from the base to specifically combat said threat…"

The Commander then took one finger and pointed it at the right lip of his trench coat pocket, tapping it to create a light blue spark that fizzles through the air before popping into even smaller sparks. "That's why I created and installed hyperspace storage units into both of my coat's pockets, that way I can store and pull out whatever I need with ease. You see, by lowering my hand into the pocket, a small scanner picks up on nerve transmissions that-" "You do realize I likely will not be able to follow along with anything you are saying, right?" Alpha interrupted before Commander Zeta got too out of hand with his explanation, which the Koopa thanks his young protégé for with an embarrassed cough and pat of his fist against his mouth before noting that he was "Quite right…" there.

"Ok, to make a long explanation short. I put my hand in, a scanner detects what I want, the object is flung out via a gravitational push, and viola! I generally have everything I can logically think of stored inside of these pockets, so there is never a shortage of possibilities for objects and gadgets that can deal with any situation the world decided to throw my way. So then, you satisfied with that answer?" Asking that last inquiry out of curiosity instead of annoyance, Zeta folds his arms behind his back only for Alpha to provide him with a gentle nod in only a couple of seconds. "Very nice…Then lets get a move on before we draw too much suspicion towards ourselves…" Wrapping his goggles around his head only a couple moments after that, Commander Zeta walks alongside Alpha as they head out towards the desert.

"_Once we reached the edge of the sandstorm, Commander Zeta pulled out his map gauntlet simply so we wouldn't get lost amongst the vast sea of sand that lied ahead of us. We trekked forward, pressing against the winds with all of our might while our feet sunk into the sands and proved difficult to pull out at times. Our breathing problems were covered by us using our hands to cover the point where the grains of sands could enter our mouth, though I had to wonder at the time exactly how Commander Zeta was preventing his nostrils from drying up. It was a mystery that didn't last long in my mind though as we soon reached our next destination…"_

Amidst the storm of grainy sands exists a cave entrance that would look as black as shadows to anyone who wasn't equipped like the two heroes currently were. There was a ladder poking out of it, but nothing that would suggest that it was stable from this great a distance away. "…We need to be careful." Commander Zeta says while protecting his mouth as he turns his head towards Alpha and quickly looks forward again whole drawing his right hand forward across the air to give the signal to move. "Why is that?" Alpha asked, imitating the same motion the Koopa performed with his own mechanical limbs. "I'm not picking up any life readings, which suggests that the guardian doesn't exude anything that can be picked up…At the very least, not with these current settings."

"So, a robot, in other words?" Tossing a guess out there for the sake of continuing the conversation, Alpha is somewhat unsurprised when Commander Zeta nods his head in agreement of that theory. "Earth element or not, a robot is usually made of metal, so an electric bolt should shut its systems down long enough for us to pass into the temple." Adding on to what he said a moment ago thanks to his mentor's agreement, Alpha then holds his right hand out in front of his body and concentrates with his eyelids closed, hoping that perhaps in time his arms would create something that can release an electrical pulse. "You don't have anything installed that can do that though, sorry to say." Commander Zeta, realizing what his young protégé was up to without even looking, reaches into his left pocket and pulls out a blue sphere that splits open with a push of the button to reveal a glowing, electrical center.

"I brought along one EMP grenade, and thankfully it is a small scale one otherwise all of our equipment would be shut down along with the robot." As Commander Zeta talks about his secret weapon and shuts it off for the moment with another push of the button, the ground below the two heroes slowly begins to rumble as the sandstorm withers down to a light breeze with a few grains scattered through the air in just a matter of seconds. A split in the sand in front of them signifies that the guardian is digging its way through to confront them. It stops for two seconds merely ten feet away from Commander Zeta's body, and with a circular burst of sand from the center of its emergence point a gigantic robot with four sleek rectangular legs, eight drill arms stuck to its body via a series of titanium limbs, and a glowing red eye stuck inside of a black glass crescent rises up and scans the two heroes with a thin optic ray.

"INTRUDERS, YOUR HISTORY SHALL BECOME ONE WITH THE SANDS AS I BURY YOU UNTIL YOUR BREATH DO-" As the guardian boasts to a rather arrogant degree, Commander Zeta quickly activates and tosses the EMP grenade right into the robot's face, which promptly shuts him up as a timer ticks down to zero and the device explodes to release a field of energy big enough to consume the robot whole and shut down all of its functions, which also included the gravity defying boosters at the bottom of his legs that sustained his flight. After the field died down, the guardian quickly fell against the ground hard, the ensuing chaos brought on by his collision with the rocky floor below the grain releasing a flurry of metal and other various parts that the two heroes raise their arms to defend themselves slightly against it all.

At the end of all the noise brought on by the robot's crash, all that remains on the ground is a broken mess of a machine who no longer has any protection around the wires connecting its drills to its body and its legs barely look as if they can support anything anymore. The guardian is still alive, thankfully, but by the time the EMP effect wears off due to the magical properties of the curse restoring it the robot shall wish that it had been permanently disabled by the grenade. Surprised at the damage done, Alpha lets out a quick yet quiet whistle while saying to his mentor "Sheesh, glad that EMP grenade was as weak as it was…Any stronger and my arms would look as disfigured as the robot does now." "Which is exactly why I don't want you to ever ask me to create an EMP Grenade launcher for your arms…Got it?" Commander Zeta gives a stern warning to his young protégé, and after a sigh and a nod Alpha takes of his goggles and gives them back to his mentor so they can be put away before they enter the temple…

"_So we made our way down the ladder and reached the damp, rocky tunnel below. With little light to help us out, we almost pulled our goggles back on until a quick look around us revealed a piece of wood that we could light up and use as a torch. Thankfully, Commander Zeta still had his lighter on hand and he set the tip of the wood on fire, and he gave the torch over to me and let me take the lead since my arms would be more resilient to the flames assuming the wood ever burned that far down. We made our way down the tunnel, a journey which took maybe eight…ten minutes tops, and arrived in a small room with four passageways. One of them was sealed off though, meaning we had to traverse the other three chambers to find the object necessary to continue onward."_

"_We went down each passage, surprised how all but one were easily traversed with little to no traps getting in our way…Also, you were right Gemini, the third tunnel really was a thrill to traverse. Anyways, after acquiring the three stone fragments we went back and inserted them into the center of the gigantic rune, which as you know caused a chain reaction of light energy to destroy the door and allow us entrance to the next part of the temple. However, unlike your journey with Mario and the others, we ended up going across the bridge to reach the other side…If I must be honest, you really didn't miss much there…Though if I should be so kind as to note, the trip across the rocky bridge was not the only difference between our journey and yours…"_

At the end of the bridged rested a circular room suspended from the ceiling thanks to a firm, rocky pillar. Hovering in the center of said room is a gem encrusted platform, and it was likely that this platform travels through the hollow tunnel below it towards the site where the Elemental Stone lies. Or it could be a trap, that was something that Alpha was considering as he tossed the torch away off the side of the bridge and walked closer to the platform. "What do you think Commander? Should we get on it?" "What other choice do we have really?" Commander Zeta points out the obvious, but it was something that Alpha was rather used to hearing by now. Though needless to say, the young Goomba lowered his eyelids slightly in annoyance towards himself for continuing to let his mentor answer all the obvious questions for him.

"Alright, I'll just have my mind focused on my arms at all times then just in case something were to suddenly happen…" Giving his mentor a heads up for the future, Alpha leaps onto the platform just seconds before the Koopa does. Detecting the presence of living creatures on its smooth surface, the platform begins to descend slowly without the pull of magnetism suspending it in place. The tunnel below was just wide enough to allow the two heroes to move their arms about with ease, though only when they were descending straight down. For you see, there were times when the platform had to move diagonally or spiral around, at which point the area became a little more constrictive until they returned to the aforementioned direction of travel.

But eventually, the trip became worth it, for the two heroes descended into a room where walls were filled to the brim with rocks of every kind, while the floor was laced with gems of many shapes and colors, where at the center of it all there exists an altar made of amber where the next Elemental Stone rested inside of. The platform spun around and descended rather slowly, but the two heroes had all the glamorous sights to take in to keep them preoccupied until the platform finally stopped twenty feet away from the small staircase that led up to the top of the altar. When they leap off, the platform rises back up through the funneled passage it descended from, never to be seen again by either hero. Without another word, the two heroes walk towards the altar ready to confront the guardian. Commander Zeta touches the stone first, and as usual a bright light covers the room to signify the creature's release into the real world once more. Covering their eyes as they back away from the altar, the two heroes are told to remove their arms from their faces when the light fades away and the guardian speaks towards them in a rather disjointed, hazy tone of voice. "Well, what do we have 'ere?"

A large, legless rock golem with no discernable features save for the two drills fused inside of his arms and the onyx eyes on its face appears merged with the altar from which the stone it was summoned forth once was. The rocks on its body look incredibly muddy, and some of that very mud drips from the tip of its crag stone teeth as the mouth splits apart to reveal a rather disfigured tongue made of sand and crystallized saliva dripping from the cracks between his rocky gums. "A piece of walking fungus with golden alloy arms and a soup ingredient with clothing…Please tell me that you brought some 'ore people with you or I'll be very disappointed to have been awakened…" The creature takes his left drill and scratches the rugged metal against the side of his head, grinding against his rocky skin and breaking it apart into a grainy material that falls to the ground covered in a plume of dirt.

The lack of a reaction from the two heroes save for a turn of their heads towards each other in confusion tells the guardian more than enough about the answer to his question "Well that's 'ust great, I was rather hoping for a hefty meal after the last time I had been freed…" Shrugging his girth-y shoulders once, the guardian takes his drills and swings them out to the side, activating them both with a mighty whirl as he grinds his teeth together and exclaims to the two heroes "Whatever, I'll still grind yer bones to dust and scatter it all across this room! COME AT ME THEN!" With the guardian proclaiming prematurely the end of the Commander and his young protégé, the two of them merely nod their heads at each other and ready their arms for battle.

**The Rock Grinder Hidden in the Mines: Drill Golem Onyx**

The Golem starts the battle off by lifting his left hand into the air followed by reeling his body backward as the drill contained within is launched upwards, tearing out part of the rocks that make up his arm as he proceeds to repeat the process with his opposite limb. However, the ground starts to rumble specifically around the guardian as lumps appear across his skin that move across his body until they split off into two and head for both arms, where more drills emerge from both crumbling gaps left behind by his prior attack and fire into the air to join their similar designed counterparts. Looking up to see where the drills were going, Commander Zeta noticed the ring pattern they were forming in the air and realized that left and right movements wouldn't do much to dodge them if they all fell down at once, so he quickly flipped backwards and landed behind Alpha as the drills came down and pierced the ground so quickly that by the time one can blink their eyelids they had already vanished to parts unknown as the ground patches itself back up with a whim from the golem.

The guardian cocks his arms into the air and draws forth two more drills to replace what was lost, this time permanently restoring them instead of launching them back out as projectiles for use in battle. However, he points one drill towards the ceiling and with a whim of his mind and a sharp chomp of his mouth a few chunks of metallic rocks are pulled straight out through the thickened walls via a strong magnetic pull coming from the tip of his drill. Guiding this invisible magnetic energy towards the two heroes, the guardian sends the rocks flying their way two at a time. Alpha is quick to deal with his by transforming his right arm into its cannon form and melting through the rock with a concentrated blast of ionic energy, but Commander Zeta has to leap out as his rock comes crashing down due to the fact that he hadn't decided on a weapon to use against the guardian yet.

While in mid-air he pokes his right hand into the apposite pocket and tries to think of what may be useful, though a quick glance downward distracted him for a moment as he saw Alpha turning his arms back to normal and quickly charging forth ready to slam his right fist into the guardian's cumbersome body. Having noticed a slight sparkling glimmer seeping out through a crack in the Golem's muddy body, Commander Zeta realizes he only has a few moments from stopping his young protégé from making a huge mistake as he widens his eyes in fear of the impending pain he may have to endure if he isn't on time and exclaims in panic "ALPHA, STOP!" Naturally, the uncharacteristic behavior of his mentor caused Alpha to flinch and apply weight to his fist and in turn the rest of his body, bringing him down just inches away from the edge of the creature's body and causing his knuckles to smash against the ground hard enough to crack the weaker rocks resting below them.

Of course, the failure to finish executing his attack against the guardian managed to leave Alpha in a rather perilous position as the Golem causes the ground to tremble and crack below the Goomba, and in a matter of seconds a spiraling mess of rocks makes its way out of an expanding gap and slowly coils itself around Alpha's body. It makes sure to constrict the arms as well as it can, for the guardian recognized right away that the limbs of this creature would prove dangerous if left unchecked, which is a move one wouldn't think it would be capable of making considering its appearance and speech pattern. The coil raises Alpha up until he is put at eye level with the golem, who smacks his lips at the sight of his next meal. "I must admit, its not the flesh on yer body I'm looking forward to consuming, but rather that rare metal that's attached to yer arms that I shall take great pleasure in picking out of my teeth afterwards…"

"Not on my watch you won't!" Commander Zeta defies the guardian's wishes sternly, and with a few pulsating noises coming from afar the rocky coil wrapped around Alpha is blasted at varying junctions by laser beams. Many rocks are blown off from the rest of the spiraling form and fall to the ground, and in its weakened state Alpha is able to break free by concentrating hard enough on his arms to flex them and push away the parts of the coil around him until they can no longer handle the pressure of his metallic might and burst apart into many chunks. Left suspended in the air for but a moment until gravity takes hold and brings him down, Alpha quickly converts his right arm into its cannon form and fires a powerful yet short blast straight into the stunned golem's face, which also has the added effect of propelling him backwards through the air as the front of the beam strikes the golem straight on and spreads out the energy in a fizzled out burst, barely fazing said guardian much to Alpha's surprise.

The young Goomba lands on the ground and skids back a few feet due to the friction caused by his attack, and when his movement has ceased in the feet he is beside Commander Zeta once more. The Koopa has in his hand his signature laser pistol, though said weapon is quickly put away and exchanged out for another laser weapon with a wider body and a half an inch thin gap in the center of the front side. "What the heck is that guardian made of?!" Alpha voices his frustration in the form of a question towards his Commander, especially since he was the one who stopped him from landing a punch on the golem in the first place. "Diamond, from the looks of things…The mud is just a deceptive shroud used to lure intruders into thinking that he has an easily broken body, if I had to take a guess…"

"Well, at least I can see why you stopped me from attacking it then…" Alpha, upon hearing the truth about the guardian's body structure, let out a sigh of relief and calmed down long enough to realize the implications of his Commander's comment. He then turned his head towards him and exclaimed in confusion "Wait, so how are we supposed to be beat him if physical attacks and my ionic beam don't affect him?" Activating the glowing, plasma effect on the side of his weapon with a light press of the trigger while staring down at it with a good amount of focus in his eyes, the Commander responds to his young protégé with a lack of overall concern in his voice "High concentrations of heat will allow us to cut through diamond…Unfortunately, you have nothing in your arsenal that can generate that type of energy, so I'll have to use this splicer gun to get the desired effect…Don't worry, you still have your use here in this battle, especially if my assumption is correct…"

"I'm impressed you were able to figure out my true body composition without striking me first…" Then guardian gives a slight amount of praise to the Commander, but retracts his impressed demeanor in exchange for a more condescending glare as he states in bold "But it matters not, nothing in your arsenal, nay, nothing in ANYONE'S arsenal can break this body of mine!" Lifting his head up a bit as the guardian whirs his drills to life once more, Zeta raises one eyebrow and says with a jovial tone "Oh, nothing? That's definitely a bold claim, especially since I had assumed that someone has to have defeated you in the past…Not to mention the fact that I'm not going to break you…" The Koopa lifts his gun up and points it at the bottom of the golem's mud covered girth before pulling the trigger all the way back and firing a quick, thin laser with a widening crescent front.

Before one could even blink at the sight of the light, the bottom part of the guardian's body is quickly burned through, leaving him detached from the rest of the ground for a brief, surprising moment until he falls down upon the rest of his body. "…Interesting." The guardian says in a quiet tone of intrigue, but he doesn't express anymore surprise beyond that as the lost parts of his body begin to grow back thousands of molecules at a time in rapid succession. After remerging with the ground, the golem notices that no mud has appeared to cover his new, sparkling diamond body and thus he quickly thrusts his drill arms towards the ground and causes some of the mud above and below to liquefy and spread out across the diamond, at which point it hardens to seal it up entirely.

"Yep, saw this coming…" Commander Zeta noted in a dull tone of voice as he sighed and rubbed the back of his head with his left hand. Before Alpha could turn and make a comment on the durability of the guardian, the golem leaned forward and slammed his spinning right drill into the ground. Immediately cracking apart the surface that he struck, the attack also has the added effect of rupturing apart the ground in the pattern of a zigzagging line as it advanced towards the two heroes. Both of them leapt to the left, only for the guardian to slam his other drill down beside home to create another rupture that raises a series of rocky, gem encrusted spikes into the air to block off their escape route on the ground.

With his two foes trapped, the guardian pulls its right drill behind its body and splits it apart into four segments. "You aren't the only one in this battle that can fire beams!" Through two of the gaps red light starts to increase in luminosity, and the brightness of said energy is brought to a blinding point as the arm is thrust out in front of the guardian's body ready to fire. Alpha had to be quick at this point to save themselves from harm, and he stood in place on the ground with both of his feet firmly positioned while his transforming cannon arm was pointed at the direction of where the beam would eventually be fired from. "Hurry up and come up with something Commander, cause I don't know how long I'll be able to hold this guy off for!" The young Goomba declared as the energy whirred to life inside the barrel of his right arm. The Koopa takes note and thanks his protégé for his brief sacrifice with a nod of the head and a genuine remark before he looks to the right and sees a rock that's smooth enough for him to leap off of.

As the two beams fire out, both sharing the same color yet their size being as different as night and day, Commander Zeta leaps to the right and kicks his feet off of the smooth face of the rock spike, avoiding the shockwave from the colliding beams as he flies into the air and draws his weapon ready to strike the golem at his most vulnerable point. Amazingly, Alpha's beam appears to be pushing the guardian's own back towards him one bit at a time, which is annoying the golem as seen via his discernable grimace past the pulsating red light. With a quick splicing shot of laser energy aimed diagonally at the bottom of the golem's body, not only does Commander Zeta succeed in throwing the golem off enough for Alpha's beam to out push his, but when the full power of the ionic energy strikes the guardian square in the face his body begins to fall backwards through the air because he hadn't landed on the ground below the burned segment of his body in time.

Sensing an opportunity for attack, Alpha quickly converts his cannon arm back into its normal state and hops into the air while standing in the same spot he was in before. He holds his palms downward and concentrates on his limbs, causing both hands to push out beyond the confines of their arms with springs attached to them that allow Alpha's entire body to be launched into the air as the palms collide with the ground. Once he is high enough, the young Goomba puts his arms back together and thinks deeply once again after holding his hands out towards the flailing golem. The hands are propelled towards the limbs of the creature at high speeds, suspended to the rest of the arms by bendable, steel cords. Within seconds Alpha manages to grab onto the guardian by its shoulders and with gravity trying to pull him back down he begins commanding his hands to pull and launch the creature upward.

The golem is surprisingly hollow, and though the rest of his body makes him a little heavy it was at least somewhat plausible for Alpha to lift him up without hurting the wires inside of his arms. Which after a few seconds of grunting the young Goomba successfully manages to pull off, with the cords rising ahead of his face in a curved fashion and the body of the guardian following suit not long afterwards. Tumbling about without any control over his actions, the golem bellows in fear until his girth collides with a patch of diamonds that happened to be attached to the ceiling. And you know what they say when two diamonds are slammed together…Indeed, for the guardian is broken apart into many pieces without so much as any resistance from either force, and the patch of diamond is cracked with some of the shards from the damage falling down alongside the golem as it heads towards the ground with its broken face expressing utter disbelief at the fact that he was so soundly crushed beyond repair.

Alpha lands down beside Commander Zeta and puts his arms back in order as the Koopa puts his weapon away after one quick spin. The chunks of mud covered diamond fall to the ground around the amber altar, with the face positioned perfectly at the front of it all with the eyes still trembling in shock of it all. But as he looks up at the two heroes, the golem closes his mouth slightly and looks at them both in fear, not towards them specifically, but rather in regards to their own future now that they defeated him. "So you have defeated me…But as you will eventually find out, that shall prove to be your worst possible decision…" With the golem speaking in a particularly foreboding tone of voice similar to the one the guardian of the Sky Temple used towards Alpha, the young Goomba asked him "What do you mean by that? The human guarding the Sky Temple gave a similar warning to me when I defeated him…"

"Did he tell you how the seven stones have never once been gathered before? There is a perfectly good reason for that, and its not just because of the guardians and temple traps killing off the unprepared fools who try to take what they don't deserve…" Continuing to speak in the same tone with a great emphasis on the warning he is trying to give to the two heroes, the golem arches his eyebrows and says to them "You see, its not because everyone who made it to the final temple died to the final guardian, but rather they were all killed by the same person before they made it there…Only one person has ever had the luck of making it to the final guardian, and its only because they defied the order of the stones be pure accident and thus didn't catch the attention of this diabolical being…"

Caught in the grasp of worry and intrigue by the guardian's words, Commander Zeta narrowed his eyelids and asks the golem "Who are you talking about, exactly?" As if he has a suspicion as to who the person may be. However, the guardian is slowly turning into spirit particles, and he realizes that his time is too short to give a detailed enough explanation. "Hehehe…I'm so sorry, but if you wish to know about that person…You will have to ask the inner guardian of the Frozen Palace…You seem like smart people, so if you know what is good for you…You will abandon your quest before you dig any deeper into it…" With one last smirk, the golem fully vanished into the Elemental Stone, which then rolls to the feet of Commander Zeta, who proceeds to pick it up and raise it in front of his before shifting his head to look at Alpha's overly concerned glare and then looking back at the stone once more, where he is then left to ponder the warning the guardian left behind for them…

_To be continued…_


	9. Chapter 8: The Point of No Return

"_After thinking about the guardian's foreboding words for a few silent seconds, we made our way to the nearby staircase and climbed it for what seemed like hours on end until we finally made our way out of a small, square entrance at the top, which put us only half a mile away from Moleville with the calm, cold grip of night having now fallen upon the desert. As Commander Zeta stared up into the shining full moon, he folded his arms and thought deeply to himself about everything that had happened up until this point…He stayed uncharacteristically silent, which concerned me greatly as I stood behind him and waited for him to say even something after everything else we had gone through today. But he wasn't going to talk on his own, so it was up to me to initiate a conversation…"_

"Commander, are you going to talk at all or are we going to keep giving each other the silent treatment?" Alpha asks with a firm tone in his voice. "Sigh…I'm sorry Alpha" It wasn't often that Commander Zeta started things off with an apology, and needless to say his response took the young Goomba entirely off-guard as he turned his body and looked his protégé straight in the eyes with his arms sinking down beside his shell. "I was just thinking about how this whole thing started with a rather simple premise…Find the seven stones, and with them stop a tyrant from destroying everything we care about. But now we are dealing with mysterious forces I feel no mortal should really try and comprehend, and then there is the whole matter of this person who has supposedly been killing people before they reach the final temple…"

There was a bit of melancholy in the Koopa's voice, and as he let out another sigh Alpha keyed in on this emotional state his mentor was expressing and said to him "You aren't planning on stopping now, are you?" Though Commander Zeta was unresponsive towards his protégé for a few seconds, he quickly undid his serious mood long enough to give a false smile of reassurance towards Alpha along with a thumbs up. "Of course not! I'm not worried about some killer…If you and me end up coming face to face with them, then we will take them down no problem!" His enthusiasm, however false it may have been, was more than enough to put a smile of belief on Alpha's face as the Goomba nodded his head and thanked his mentor for the reassurance.

Alpha then turned around and waved his right hand forward, saying that they should probably "Head back to the village", though after noticing that he was trying to issue orders to his Commander, his face becomes red out of embarrassment for a brief moment as he turns around and swiftly apologizes for his out of line behavior with a nervous shaking of his hands in the air in front of him. The Koopa takes no offense to the order, especially since it was getting late and he felt ready to rest after tackling three temples in a row. But as Alpha nods his head in agreement of that sentiment and starts to walk away, the Commander arches his eyebrows in disappoint over his lies towards his young protégé/brother, and thought to himself "I'm sorry Alpha…But if the killer is who I think it is, then one of us likely won't make it to the end of this journey…"

"_So the two of us eventually made our way back to Toad Town, which was rather good timing on our part considering how cold it was this late at night…Not to mention another patrol was just about to appear overhead, and we needed to take refuge inside one of the houses before they caught us wandering about considering the other Moles had retreated into their homes for the night. Thankfully, we managed to find the Inn run by the Mole that greeted us earlier on, and got a couple of beds for free because he saw how weary the two of us were and decided to express kindness by insisting that we need not pay for our time here. Despite that offer though, Commander Zeta slipped a few coins onto the cashier counter before he went to bed…We got a good night's sleep and woke up in the morning fresh and renewed, ready to conquer the final two temples in spite of the warnings given to us by the Terra Cave inner guardian…As we exited the Inn and thanked the Moles working there for their time, Commander Zeta pulled out his gauntlet to remind himself of where the next temple was located at…"_

"Oh dear…" Commander Zeta muttered out a couple of words in a worried tone as he caught a glimpse of the flashing dot on his map. "What is it Commander?" Alpha asked in a puzzled tone as he leaned his head up and tried to catch a glimpse of the map for himself. Immediately his eyes take notice of the frozen wasteland where the dot is hovering over, and after a few seconds of thinking to himself he realize just why his Commander is expressing such disdain towards where they are about to go. "The Shiver Mountains…" Alpha mutters the name of the location of the next temple, as a memory from his past sparks to life and warns him of the dangers that can be found high up there. But of course, those dangers aren't the only reasons why the two heroes are concerned about traversing the cold, slippery mountain tops.

Between Moleville and the Shiver Mountains, or more specifically the closest city to there, there was nothing but sand with little to no objects that could be used to cover their bodies from the gazing eyes of the patrols. Worst of all, because of the way the sand worked even if they went invisible their footprints would be easily seen, which would lead to more suspicion from their enemies. Their trip would work out a little better if the sandstorm was going right now, but the defeat of the inner guardian must have stopped the sand from being kicked up by the winds since nothing is occurring in the desert at the moment. Shutting the gauntlet down with a mere shake of his arm, Commander Zeta rubs his chin with his left hand and tries to come up with a solution to their current dilemma.

"…You know what, screw it." Commander Zeta zips his left hand away from his face and turns towards his young protégé with eagerness in his eyes. "Huh? What are you talking about Commander?" Alpha asks, bewildered by his mentor's sudden shift in mood. "We have only two temples to deal with at this point. By the time the patrol could detect us and warn Balroc that we are up to something, we will already have the means of killing him once and for all!" "…Are you sure that's a good idea? What if they find us before we reach the final temple? We can't run from a confrontation at that point, can we?" It was a legitimate question that Alpha brought to his Commander's attention, and the Koopa had to stand still with his arms crossed and his right foot tapping against the ground as he waited for something to happen around them.

But after a few seconds passed and nothing drew his attention away from the inquiry in his mind, Commander Zeta knew he would have to make his young protégé accept the truth that they have been dealt. "I guess our run of coincidences is done for now, Alpha…I know you don't want to accept it, but we have no other choice except to press on through the desert and get detected by the aerial patrolmen. Besides, as I said before, we can send a message to that bastard tyrant and tell him right here and now that his time on this planet is dwindling down!" In the face of his mentor's innermost refusal to back down on his goals and the fact that finding an alternative route seems to be impossible in their current location, Alpha merely sighs and shakes his head before reluctantly admitting "Alright…I trust that you'll be correct here, Commander…"

"…_How misplaced my faith was, knowing what I do know now…But still, its best not to remember things in hindsight as I reach the end of my tale. With our vow given to see this through to the end without caring about being detected, we trekked through the desert for hours of end, using a water canteen we bought from the Moles before we left to keep ourselves hydrated until the temperature cooled down significantly. We briefly glanced up at the Doomships as they went on by overhead, once again failing to care about what we saw as the mountains grew bigger in size due to us closing in on them. Our bodies instinctively began to shiver, and our breaths came out foggy for a few minutes until we adjusted to the change in temperature."_

"_We reached the Shiver Mountains after taking a quick pass through the quiet Starborn Valley, and found that the entrance to the area was perfectly open with four snowmen guarding the area on both sides of the door. Either way, we paid no attention to them save for the immediate glance and continued on through the frozen passageway until we arrived at a grand, crystal staircase. I had assumed that this led to the Frozen Palace, but Commander Zeta corrected me by noting that it actually led to the CRYSTAL Palace…Though he did wonder just why the staircase was up considering the lengths the ancients went through to seal the Crystal Palace away from intruders. Even with these questions on our mind, we leapt up each individual stair until we made it close to the entrance to the Crystal Palace, where Commander Zeta caught a glimpse of something off to the left…"_

"Hold on a second Alpha…" The Koopa froze in place, fitting considering the area they are at, and held his left hand out in order to halt his young protégé as they reached the top of the staircase. Commander Zeta then looked to the left at the thing that caught his eye, and saw that it was yet another staircase that led up past the clouds towards what may be the Frozen Palace. It wouldn't be that hard for either one of them to leap over and climb the staircase either, and they didn't have to exhaust themselves jumping beyond that as each step was about the height of their feet. But just to be certain that they would be heading in the right direction, the Koopa pulls out his map gauntlet and pops the holographic screen up to see where they are relevant to the Frozen Palace.

"Yep, that staircase will take us to our destination…" Commander Zeta noted as he shut the device off and jabbed one hand towards the stairs. "By the by, how you holding up in the cold right now?" He then proceeded to ask as he turned his head to the left a bit and raised an eyebrow out of curiosity. Alpha responded with a shrug of his shoulders, saying with a slight stutter due to the chill gripping his skin "N-Not badly…" A smile creeps onto Commander Zeta's face, and with a gentle gesture of his right hand towards his protégé's arms he makes certain to point out that "You can give yourself a little more heat by focusing on your shoulder plates to crack open and release excess heat that can counteract the cold around here…Or at the very least, put you at a more normal temperature."

Taking the advice into consideration with a curious hum, Alpha closes his eyelids slowly with the shiver still covering his body and feels soon enough as the heat pours out through the slits in his metallic arms. Relaxed now as his body warms back up, the young Goomba opens his eyelids and thanks his mentor for this trick and says that he is ready to continue on their way. So with a careful yet correctly timed leap towards the staircase, the two heroes begin climbing towards the top of the mountain far beyond the thin layer of clouds in the area. It was an amazing, dedicated climb, and they survived through the popping of their eardrums via the change in air pressure by refusing to focus on them.

Eventually they make it to the top, where a shroud of fog meet their gaze as they try and look out towards the temple that looms over them like the glorious, ancient architecture it was. But after a few steps closer, the two heroes are horrified by what they see outside the gates to the palace itself. "What kind of monster would do this…" Commander Zeta says in abject horror as right in front of him stood a gigantic, two-sided arch of ice cubes with hundreds of creatures permanently frozen inside of their perfectly sided confines. They were stuck in their with their last poses frozen in place, but from a quick look at their eyes it was easy to see that even if they were thawed out the prolonged exposure to the cold has resulted in their death.

"Commander…I know you likely don't want to know the numbers…But…" Alpha, unnerved as he tries to speak to his mentor, is stopped midway by a raise of the Commander's hand and a disapproving shake of the head. "Its times like this that remind me of the regret I feel over being unable to stop these guardians…" He says with a growl in his tone. As they take a couple more steps forward while trying their hardest to avoid thinking about the lives lost in the cold blocks of ice, a figure drops down from the air behind them and crashed onto the ground hard enough to alert the two of his presence. The creature, a titan of spherical ice with a bulging, fleshy eye kept alive behind the largest orb in the center, leans forward slightly before he pulls himself up and raises his right hand into the air with a powerful chill flushing itself into his palm.

But because he was discovered ahead of time via the sound of his landing, the two heroes turn around swiftly and leap to the right to avoid a gale of arctic energy that hits the ground and creates a slanted pillar of pure permafrost. Disappointed that his attack missed, the titan raised his hand and glared at the two heroes with utter contempt. "Usually that works…You two are more aware than most other fools that have come here!" As soon as the titan swings his arm off to the side his pillar shatters spectacularly, and he looks at the two heroes once more as Commander Zeta arches his eyebrows in total disgust and says to the monster in front of him "As much as it pains me not to, we have no time to fight you, monster." "You do not have a choice in the matter, peasant…" The guardian responded with murderous intent gleaming from his bleeding pupil.

"Actually, I believe we do…" Calmly reacting towards the guardian's boast, Commander Zeta brushes the sides of his trench coat off and quickly grabs Alpha by his right hand before turning around and dashing towards the palace without a single declaration. The Goomba is dragged along for a few feet until he puts his feet down to run all on his own with the guardian angrily chasing after them through the palace itself. The titan moves its arms inward and outward to avoid breaking apart the pillars that are in his way, his body keeping pace with the two heroes despite the size and weight he is forced to carry around with his legs. But eventually the guardian notices them approaching a passageway that would too small for him to fit through, and in desperation he raises his arms into the air and releases a cross stream of ice that creates a massive, thick block of ice that quickly falls down ready to either crush the heroes or trap them in this room with them.

But his timing was miscalculated, and the two heroes are able to fall to their back and slide underneath the ice block just as it crashes down in front of the doorway. The guardian stops his rampaging pursuit mere inches away from the block he created, realizing all too well that even if he moved it out of the way his bulky hands would be incapable of pushing through the perimeter of the doorway and he would be unable to obtain his prey, especially since in that span of time they would have already gotten further on ahead. In rage, the titan pounds the wall in front of him, the vibrations of his attack reaching the hallway the two heroes were in as they picked themselves up off the ground and Commander Zeta slowly yet calmly walked over to the ice block to say something to the guardian.

"Understand something here, guardian…You should consider yourself lucky that neither one of us wished to fight you here today, for your monstrous acts against the creatures you sealed away in ice would be remembered in each blow we deliver to obliterate your body down to the last frozen molecule…Of course, you should also consider yourself lucky that we wish to not experience the curse that is kept sealed away inside of you, for we would instead bring you close to death without so much as a grimace of remorse on our faces as we once again think back to what you have done…As for now though, we are going to go fight the inner guardian of this temple that you have tried so hard to guard away from us, and when we return we expect this block to be gone and our passage secured without you even raising a finger or an eye towards us…"

With his hands folded entirely behind his shell as he spoke firmly towards the creature, the ensuing silence from the titan is seen as unsurprising from Alpha's point of view, though the young Goomba had to go silent himself because he wasn't used to his Commander giving such harsh sounding speeches even if the recipient completely deserved to hear it all. After a few more seconds of expressing disbelief on his face, Alpha went back to normal as Commander Zeta turned back around and said to his protégé with a natural look returned to his expression "Come on, we got work to do." And the two continued onward much to the disappointment of the guardian.

"…_It was around this time I began to get concerned about my perception of Commander Zeta. He was usually pretty optimistic about things, but now he seemed incredibly troubled by the truths he was learning over the last few days…Sigh, if I had enough confidence back then to speak up, I should have suggested some sort of alternate method to stopping the tyrant besides seeking out the stones, but because I allowed Commander Zeta to…No, sorry about that Gemini, I was just going through one of those 'Blame myself' moments…Getting back on track here…We went through the icy maze and perilous caverns and reached the final room in the temple, where Commander Zeta touched the Elemental Stone and summoned forth the guardian…"_

With a crystal blue light flushing itself through the room, the two heroes take pause at the very edge of the light's radius as it retracts itself back into the person created from the stone. It was another human, this one having a regal blue cape with white fur across the border of it draped over his shoulders while a sleeveless latex, icy blue shirt covered in ridged scales covered his body. His pants were ruffled, but were rather civilian in nature in contrast to the rest of the objects on his body. His face is covered down to the mouth by a crystal crown with six spikes surrounding the top of it. He has a small, red pendant surrounding his neck that glimmers when the sun shines down upon it, and a smile on his face that shows joy over the fact that he has company standing before him.

"Greetings, and welcome to my palace travelers…" The guardian spoke in a particularly subdued, eastern tone of voice, which was rather weird since his garb had some British influence in it…Not like the two heroes knew that, though. The man took a couple of steps forward and with a nudge of his right arm he brushed his cape to the side for a moment as he reached for the back of his pants and pulled out a super cooled glass gauntlet with a strange, frothy red liquid frozen inside of its bowels. With a casual release of air from his mouth towards the liquid a thin layer of it begins to thaw out, which in turn leads to it becoming a thick, dark red mixture that he quickly swallows down with a swift rise of the goblet's lip towards his mouth and a pull back of his head.

As he finishes his drink off, he remembers the heroes' presence and with a welcoming smile he gestures with the front of his goblet and offers them a drink with an inquiry of "Are you guys cold?" The two heroes shake their heads in the most inoffensive way plausible, seeing as they have no clue what the liquid is or what is in it. "Very good judgment…" The guardian said quietly yet with a dash of disappointment as he pulled his goblet back and tucked it away behind him. "I doubt your bodies would have been recipient to that liquid anyway, since it was pure blood drawn straight from the inner guardian of the final temple…" The calmly spoken revelation was nearly enough to draw some revulsion from Alpha's eyes and mouth, but like his Commander he kept himself composed and at the same time found himself being curious towards the drink.

"Why are you drinking someone else's blood?" He asked. The guardian cracked another smile, and with a retraction of his right arm so his cape could drape over it once more he clapped his hands together once and said in a pleasant tone of thankfulness "I'm glad you asked. I haven't had any company for quite some time and it would be wonderful if we could exchange words for a bit before we begin battle…" Parting his hands to get into a more natural conversational pose, the guardian brandishes his left fingers into the air and said with gusto "You see, as ironic as it sounds, I'm rather susceptible to the cold…So before we were all sealed away, the guardian of the soon to be named Ignitor Cave drew from his flesh some of his blood, which he said one sip would warm my body for about thirty minutes…More than enough time for any battle I have, as you may have guessed."

"Of course, he only gave me his blood because the magical properties that would be imbued inside of me via the Elemental Stones meant that unlike everyone else, whose insides would feel the illusionary burn of the sun for over a thousand hours, I would simply feel as though I was taking a delectable sip from a cup of hot cocoa, just to make the comparison easy for you two to perceive. Anyways…" The guardian notices the innermost desire to know something else in the eyes of the heroes and stops squabbling on about his drink. "So, what do you wish to know? Considering I'm the last chance you have of getting any questions answered, you may as well at least get the most important one off of your troubled minds…"

Commander Zeta was swift in taking the man up on his offer, and with his patience having paid off he unfolds his arms and gestures with his right hand while tilting his head slightly to the left. "What do you know about the person that is going around killing those who collect the Elemental Stones?" Immediately, the guardian's smile fades away, his features sinking down to fit into the form of an angered scowl as his right hand crunches into the shape of a fist. With his body trembling in rage upon remembering the person responsible for the countless murders of those who had tried so hard to obtain the stones, the man lets out a vocal outburst showing utter disgust towards them as the shadow of their body is etched once more into his memories. "Curse that foul, putrid empathy-less scum of a sentient being! Her bigotry and blasphemy against all life both mortal and immortal is a sin upon this graceful universe that for god knows whatever reason has gone unpunished! If I was not forced to witness the events unfold in the confines of the Elemental Stone, I would surely deliver justice upon that green-skinned witch by freezing her insides until icicles thrust out from every part of her skin in the goriest fashion imaginable!"

It wasn't until the mention of a "witch" and her "green skin" that Commander Zeta's eyes widened briefly in surprise, and he nodded his head a few times as the guardian finished his vicious declaration and took a few seconds to calm himself while both Alpha and his mentor took all of this information into themselves. The young Goomba, however, fails to notice Commander Zeta's behavior and thus has no idea that he knows something about the aforementioned witch…Though its not as if he would take a moment to reveal what he knew, especially when the guardian was still around. "I-I see…I'm sorry to know that you feel this way about what's been happening, yet have been unable to do anything…" Commander Zeta tries to keep a demeanor of shock about him so the guardian doesn't catch on to the fact that he knows about the witch.

"…Well, I must thank you for that kindly remark…But it was meant to be more than just an answer to your question…It was a grave warning to you both to stop your pursuit of the Elemental Stones before its too late. You cannot beat the witch…No one who has come before you has been able to stand up to her, and fine gentlemen such as yourselves should not have to have your lives cut short in pursuit of the Overlord's powers when someone else has already been deemed worthy of wielding them in the immediate future…" The guardian gives an honest to god warning to the two heroes, hoping that they may take it into consideration before they make a move that they will inevitably regret, but as he lifts his head up from his solemn sinking Commander Zeta does too give an honest to god rebuttal to what was said. "I thank you kindly as well for the warning, but we cannot back down now…The witch is not the only monster in this world we have to vanquish, and for us to accomplish such goals we need the Elemental Stones. Perhaps if you gave us the stone without a fight, we can continue on our way and make it to the Ignitor Cave before the witch takes notice of us."

Commander Zeta's words, spoken with a great deal of optimism, causes the guardian to crack another smile and makes him chuckle quietly to himself as he rubs his chin out of intrigue towards the Koopa's claims. "Do you truly believe that such a thing is possible? I'm sorry to disappoint you…But it is physically and spiritually impossible for any of the inner guardians to retreat back into the Elemental Stones on their own free will. If you wish to take the stone, then you will have to defeat me in combat." The guardian held his right hand out and uncurled his fingers away from the palm. Within seconds a powerful gale flushed itself into the room through the windows beyond and swirled around the circumference of his palm for a couple fleeting moments until the crystalloid sparkles of snow spread out beyond the length of his hand and solidified into the shape of a hardened lance with a rather rigid surface and a perfectly smooth steel handle for the guardian to wrap his fingers back around and use to swing his weapon off to the side. "Forget all the showing you have seen up until this point…As the second strongest of the inner guardians, my power is far beyond that of my prior brethren! But if fate permits that you are to be the victor today, then perhaps you can do something about that witch after all! Come then, heroes, and face me!"

**The Chivalrous King of the Frost: Lord Kelvin**

With a swift thrust of his lance diagonally into the ground, Kelvin unleashed a wave of snow that rises up higher than the height of his body and crashes forward against the ground towards where the heroes are standing in an attempt to bury them underneath a thick layer of snow. However, with enough time spent preparing the attack Alpha and Commander Zeta are able to leap out of the way, with the young Goomba converting his left arm into its cannon form and firing a beam of ionic energy that burns right through the middle of the fallen wave of snow as it inches closer to the guardian itself. But with a whirling of his lance above his head with some careful coordination between both hands, Kelvin slams his weapon down in front of him and creates a vibration akin to one caused by a mighty hammer, which reverberates across the floor and causes a flash of light to rise up above the front of his body. In a matter of seconds, a wall of thick black ice appears in front of him, the below zero temperature of its proving to be more than enough to fizzle out most of the heat from Alpha's beam by the time it melts through the wall, thus making the half an inch round beam hit Kelvin's chest and create nothing more than a thin bit of steam.

He smiles upon sensing that the two heroes have landed on the ground, and with a lifting of his left hand away from the top of his lance's handle the guardian snaps his fingers and shatters the remains of his black ice wall in order to fuse the remnants together into a series of condensed projectiles that are launched out in a widened spread meant to cover all parts of the room. Some of the projectiles quickly stick to the nearby pillars while others end up on the ceiling. The remainder that do go for the heroes are dodged or deflected though, as Alpha swings his arm out with enough force for the ice to not impale themselves into the metallic surface while Commander Zeta retracts his head and limbs into his shell and falls to the ground with his trench coat hovering in the air just above the range of the spikes long enough for him to get back up and put it back on with a quick thrust of his body parts.

"Impressive…Now try this!" The guardian lifted his lance high into the air after pulling it from the ground. With a glimmer of aurora light shining from the tip of his lance, the man projects a series of beams sharing the same colors as the glow that rise up towards the mosaic ceiling and merge together into a glowing, spherical form. Kelvin takes his weapon and swings it forward, in essence cutting the sphere in half and causing it to burst into its multiple components so all of them fall and bombard the battlefield at random points. The randomness of this attack stems from the fact that he had already observed how easily dodged his predictable moves were, and figured that catching them off guard would make it easier for one or two shots to strike. Sure enough, after seconds of watching the two heroes jump and weave through his rain of aurora blasts, Commander Zeta is the first one struck directly in the chest by one of the stray beams, the attack creating a miniature blast that knocks him backwards into the pathway of another attack, though this one strikes him on the head and knocks him against the ground with his mouth opening to release a subdued grunt of pain.

"COMMANDER!" Alpha turns his head after deflecting a shot with his right arm upon hearing his mentor in pain, but because of his lapse into concern another shot strikes him directly in the side of his body and blasts him right into the front of a nearby pillar where his weight was fortunately not enough to break through the rocky structure and instead caused him to bounce against it and land against the floor on his back. Kelvin paid attention to all of this with his lance foolishly held away from his body, and as he shook his head he quickly sensed something happening where Commander Zeta was at. A sudden movement of the Koopa's body made him focus back on the battle just in time for one of his own aurora blasts to hit him square in the gut, scalding him with the pure energy of the northern lights and causing him to skid back along the ground five inches as he plants his lance down beside him to slow his movements and kept one hand on his chest where the pain was at its worst.

Though it was not clear to the guardian as to what Commander Zeta did, from the Koopa's point of view he is currently seen lowering a small reflective mirror that he pulled from his trench coat in order to deflect a shot back at Kelvin and disrupt his focus on the bombardment and cause it to cease immediately. "Not bad there…" The guardian held no qualms with the Koopa over the move he just performed, but he is not able to give a more detailed compliment due to the fact that during his recovery from his reflected attack Alpha has gotten back onto his feet and attempted to fire another Ionic Beam at him. "You do not learn, do you child?" With another smile cracked the guardian slams his lance into the ground and summons forth another wall of black ice to block what he suspected would be the beam. However, having learned from his prior mistake, the Alpha switches which arm is out ahead of his body and fires his left hand out with the steel cord attached to the back of it.

Clenched into the form of a fist, the attack strikes the center of the icy wall and cracks it outright, which in turn causes the guardian to flinch in pain. But the assault was not yet through, as without a word exchanged Commander Zeta threw a grenade through the air in an arc so that enough time would be spent on the weapon before it exploded at the exact point where the cracks were made. A hole is blasted right through the wall, the chunks of ice that avoided utter disintegration crashing against the ground in front of the guardian as he raises his left arm up so his cape protects him against most of the ice. But in his moment of self-defense he fails to catch Alpha jumping into the air once more with his Ionic Beam ready to fire through the now widened hole.

The attack melts through the circumference of the hole and never once loses steam as it keeps on going and strikes Kelvin straight in the area between his face and waist with as much power as Alpha can muster while he is suspended in the air. With the energy gushing out in all directions, it only takes a matter of seconds for the guardian to give up his resistance and be flung back against the wall set behind him, where his lance joins him as an imprint against the wall. With his body gravely damaged by an attack that struck him at his then weakest point, he had been soundly defeated and his wall of black ice was undone alongside all other wintry spells on the battleground. As Alpha and Commander Zeta rushed towards him as he fell out of the wall and landed knees first onto the ground, his lance began to dissipate into a chilling, arctic frost that flew into the gem that has now cracked around his neck.

"Heheh…Such swiftness with which I was dealt with…" The guardian once again had no qualms with what had occurred, for he only had himself to blame for his defeat. "…You weren't fighting with all you had, were you?" Commander Zeta stopped in place several feet from Kelvin and inquired towards him based on what he managed to see before him. "Hehehe…Right you are, sir…" Letting out a light cough after forcing himself to crack a smile, the guardian proudly raised his head back up and said to the two heroes "I am but a human, a human who foolishly placed on his head a crown that granted me the ability to control and see everything through the eyes of the frost itself…At the cost of my normal vision and mortality…But a lack of sight was not the only reason I thus lost…It was because I have not fought anyone for a good hundreds of years, and in the confines of the stone my skills can only rust…But it changes not what has happened, for I have been defeated, and in a few seconds you can have my Elemental Stone without any more challenges from me or the outer guardian that you wisely chose to avoid…"

What the guardian said held a lot of truth, for his body began to dissolve into spiritual particles that would slowly being absorbed into the stone that had been trapped in the center of his body the whole time that he existed. But before his head faded away, he looked up at the two heroes and said to them with a smile ever-present "Please, for the sake of all those so mercilessly killed by her…Stop her, and do not become another one of her victims…That is my only request…" Sis final five words echoed within the room as he vanished completely and his stone clattered onto the ground while Commander Zeta took a couple of steps forward to pick the relic up while Alpha broke the silence to say to him "…Commander, I think we should listen to the guardian…" The Koopa paused mid-lift as the young Goomba looked away from his mentor with a slight look of regret in his eyes. "…How far have we come now?" Zeta asked in a firm, reminding tone of voice.

"S-Six temples…" Alpha slowly yet hesitantly answers. "We only have one left, and you can't let the warnings of someone we only just met sway us away from our determined goal…And besides…" Taking on a more optimistic voice after berating wish young protégé for even considering backing down, Commander Zeta turned and faced Alpha and while putting the stone away he reminded him of one obvious fact. "You and me are a team, brothers and friends to the very end Alpha…So what if a witch stands in our way? We can take her, just like we have everything else up until this point…" Commander Zeta takes his left hand and pats Alpha on the shoulder, but his following remark is heard not just by the two of them…

In a realm that has been long since sealed away from the rest of the universe, a being stirs her hands around the circumference of a magic portal that allows her to observe everything that goes on in Plit whenever she sees it necessary to do so. With her wrinkled, green hands retracting into her ivory robe, the witch named Cackletta listens to the two unaware heroes and upon hearing Commander Zeta's comment of _"If I may be wrong, then let my life be the price…" _she cracked upon a smile as hundreds of glowing yellow eyes cracked open behind her and a smile grew wide across her face. The creatures made of the purest darkness stir to life and crawl across both the air and the ground to swarm around Cackletta as she says to them with malicious intent "You heard him my Heartless…Soon enough, you shall once again be able to feast after I have broken this fool's eager heart…"

_To be continued…_


	10. Chapter 9: Every Light Must Fade

"…_Commander, with all due respect, I have to ask you something." "Huh? What is it Gemini?" "You keep bringing up things that Commander Zeta said despite not being in range to hear him…So how do you know was spoken from his mouth?" "Ah, a rather good question Gemini. You see, I'm just filling in his quiet and silence with what I believed he may have said or thought based on what I knew about his personality back then. Its likely not all accurate, but its up to you if you want to use my interpretation or your own for my story…" "I guess that is the most reasonable way to handle it…Alright, thanks for answering for me, you can continue without any further interruption, sir." "Heheh, not a problem Lieutenant. Now, where was I?"_

"_Ah yes…After traversing through temple once more to make it back to the entrance, we saw the outer guardian for a brief second as he glared our way and mumbled angrily to himself. Commander Zeta narrowed his eyebrows and once again remarked that he wished that something could've been done to save the people the guardian trapped, but I, in turn, once again reminded him that there was nothing that we could do, an option that my mentor wasn't exactly fond of accepting as we went back down the mountain and traversed our way towards the gateway into Shiver Mountain. It was there that Commander Zeta pulled out his gauntlet and told me where the final temple is located at…"_

"Well, this is going to complicate things…" Commander Zeta nervously rubbed the back of his head with his left hand and grumbled quietly to himself as he looked at the glowing dot on his map that indicated where their next destination lies. "We are going into enemy territory, from the looks of things…And I don't particularly like the area in question." Commander Zeta puts his gauntlet away for the time being after memorizing the direction he and his young protégé would have to take to reach the next area. "Alpha, do you recall a location by the name of the Nova Cesspool, by any chance?" The Koopa asks with a swift glance to the right of him as he folds his arms below his chin to think for a moment. "No I don't…What is it?" Alpha responds to express his confusion.

"It is a highly toxic area that only Koopas can traverse, created by one of the first Koopa Kings thousands of years ago to protect an unknown treasure of his. Unfortunately, that second factoid means that the Nova Cesspool has been passed down as one of Balroc's properties, and thus there is a slightly higher chance than usual that we might get detected by them if we don't play our cards right…And that's not even getting into the toxicity of the area, which will prove problematic for you, Alpha." Turning his head off to the side for a moment, Commander Zeta takes not of the lack of concern in his young protégé's eyes and wonders just why he is feeling that way. "Well…Couldn't we just use the Sky Elemental Stone?"

"I beg your pardon?" The Koopa, for once in his life, expressed bewilderment at Alpha's inquiry and smiled over the fact that his protégé actually managed to do so. "Remember back at the Toad Town docks when you used the first stone to split the seas? Maybe we don't need all seven stones to use their powers, but if we do so we have to wait a while for them to recharge? If so, we could use the Sky Elemental Stone to project a shield of air around me that pushes away all toxins that try to enter my body…" It was a well-thought out plan considering the evidence of the stone's abilities the two heroes had seen up until this point in time, and as Commander Zeta rubbed his chin he said to his young protégé "That just might work…Assuming the veil won't be given a time limit…"

Noticing the slight quiver of disbelief in Alpha's eyes over the fact that Commander Zeta is assuming the worst will happen once again, the Koopa retracts his prior statement by saying to his protégé "But more than likely, it will all work out for the best." Which brought a smile back to the young Goomba's face. With no other reason for the two of them to be standing around in the cold, white landscape of the Shiver Mountains, the two heroes began to make their way east of the area, where after one final trip across the wastelands near the M.S.I. base and the grasslands they would arrive at their final destination, with only a slim idea as to what would be awaiting them once they got there…

"…_This will be the last time that I shall be briefly summarizing the events of my tale for quite some time, Gemini, for this is the point where everything I knew would change forever…But from where I stood at that very moment, alongside Commander Zeta with all of our optimism brimming in our minds and on our faces, I knew nothing about what was going to happen, and perhaps such blissful unawareness would have been better discarded instead of looming inside of me…Heh, here I am looming on my past mistakes when I've already talked plenty about how only the present affects who I am today…Forgive me Lieutenant, and let me continue on with my tale once more…" _

Arriving at the outskirts of the Nova Cesspool just inches away from the range of the highly toxic fog in the area, the two heroes take pause and look ahead of themselves to see the bubbling lands and the many geysers that spewed the toxins into the air for the foolish creatures that trespassed to breath. Commander Zeta wondered out loud "How has our atmosphere not deteriorated from all of this toxicity?" To which Alpha responded to by saying after looking up at the sky and noticing that most of the fog dissipates after rising up to a certain point "Perhaps that Koopa King from the past made it so the toxins would only affect sentient life?" Once again impressed with his young protégé's observation, Commander Zeta wiggles his fingers against his chin and puts his hand back down against the side of his shell.

"Well noted, Alpha. That's likely the case…" He says to make sure that his young protégé hears his thoughts on the matter. He then takes his other hand and puts it into his shell ready to take the Elemental Stone out for their next purpose, only for him to start feeling his heart beat slowly yet powerfully against his chest thanks to the amount of worry he has kept suppressed inside of his body because of what he knew would be an eventual, gruesome encounter with the witch. Shifting his head slightly to the left, Zeta looks at his young protégé as he waits for the Elemental Stone while also being absorbed in his own thoughts, so he is unaware of his mentor's hesitation at the moment. "Perhaps that's for the best…" Commander Zeta notes after slowly blinking his eyelids once and drawing the stone out from his shell.

"I shouldn't tell him anything about her…Or maybe I should…" A conflict of the mind plagued Commander Zeta as he moved his body around in a fashion that wouldn't draw attention to his distress, and with a few words "Alpha, I want to ask you something…" he got his protégé's attention and he in turn began to kneel down as he turned to face him. It was then that Alpha noticed a bit of distress in his mentor's face despite how much Commander Zeta tried to hide it, and with a shift of his face he asked "What is it Commander?" "…" It was now or never, Commander Zeta summarized his inner conflict with five words and blinked slowly once more before saying to him to break his silence "If you don't want to die…Then you have my permission to leave and head back to the base…"

It was a sudden shift in his Commander's behavior that took Alpha off-guard as he flinched and reacted accordingly with his face stiff with surprise as he said "W-What brought this on all of a sudden?" "I'm just asking…And I'm not meaning to sound rude here Alpha, especially after all we've been through…But I don't need you for this final temple, I can handle the guardian by myself even if he is stronger than all the prior ones combined…But its not the guardian I'm worried about…I'm worried about the stone's veil running out and the toxicity of this area killing you without me being able to do anything to-" "Please stop Commander Zeta." Alpha interrupts his mentor as he realizes how hard it is for him to come up with an excuse as to why he didn't want him to come along.

"Its about the witch, isn't it? You are worried about her deep down and you aren't wanting me to be scared of her too by showing fear, right?" Alpha made a guess as to Zeta's true intentions, but even though he was a bit off it was more than enough to get his mentor to drop the façade. The Commander nods his head and sighs out of shame for his attempt to fool his bright young protégé. "Forgive me for trying to hide things from you, Alpha…" "You were doing it for my own good, but that's not necessary anymore…I'm not afraid of the witch…Time and time again we have proven ourselves capable of defeating any foe that comes our way, so why should we be scared of some random witch? I'm staying a part of this fight whether you want me to or not, Commander…" Alpha makes his decision crystal clear, and offers his hand out in hopes that his mentor will accept what he wants to do.

"…No, you're right Alpha…" Commander Zeta picks his body up in a dignified manner while keeping his stone gripped tightly around his left hand. "We can win…That's how it has been, and that's how it always will be between us…" The Koopa thus extended his right hand out and shook his young protégé's, and with his eyelids slightly slanted he began looking at the Goomba in a completely different light than he has up until now. While he was nervous about fighting the witch, with a gut feeling inside of him that he couldn't shake off no matter how optimistic he tried to be about the situation, Alpha stood in front of him bravely and cared not about staring into the face of what may lead to death…A development that Commander Zeta was happy to see come to pass as he kept a brimming smile on his face and began to move his right hand away from Alpha's metallic arm.

But as they moved away, an echoing, coarse laugh swiftly struck the eardrums of the two unaware heroes "EHEHEHEHEEHEHE!" This laugh, with time, would be etched into the mind of the young Alpha…For now though, it was a prelude to the madness that the two of them would have to face as with but an effortless whim a capsule shape portal of black and blue darkness appears below the two heroes and swallows them whole right as Commander Zeta gets into a battle pose and puts one hand into his right pocket while exclaiming "Show yourself you-" His sentence is frozen within the confines of time though as they are both thrust through a massive corridor of pitch black nothingness that robs their bodies of all sight and feeling right up until the final moment where they are thrown out into an unfamiliar area with their bodies perfectly kept in the same poses they were in before they were taken away, and the Koopa's sentence is finished off with a bold declaration of their enemy's title…Though with a slow descent into bewilderment as he scopes out the area around himself "…witch?"

The two were a bit disoriented from the sudden shift between dimensions, and Commander Zeta wobbled around trying to stay on his feet for a few seconds into his eyes focused in on the area around him. Alpha did the same, but recovered slightly faster. The two of them found themselves trapped inside of a jail quarter with a rather alien-like design that was clearly worn down from years of no use…At least, that's what a first glance would make one assume. But after a shift of their eyes and head around the area the two heroes realize that something more dire happened to this vessel. The windows that would keep the prisoners in, or something out, have been shattered down to the very last shard of glass in the corner of the frames.

Not just that, but there are a few skeletons lying against the walls that clearly had their flesh torn off and eaten instead of a steady decay causing their lifeless bodies to rot. Cobwebs had formed around the bones, but there was no life that could have weaved the webs from a quick observation. It was a creepy shift of atmosphere, especially since not even the broken wires released a fizzle to signify life in the ship's circuitry. Alpha turns around, and upon noticing four small claw shaped, dried up blood streaks above the punctured skull of a lizard like alien skeleton he flinches slightly in disgust thinking that such a thing was not that disturbing to witness, but suddenly his body was overcome in an unholy chill in his backside that crept up until it reached his skull and gave him a mental message that can be summarized as "Nothing here is right…Run…Run…" But a quick turn and pat from Commander Zeta snapped him out of his fear long enough for him to turn around and face his mentor's attempt at keeping his composure and smiling.

"Commander…Where are we?" Alpha knew that Commander Zeta more than likely didn't know the answer to his fear derived question, but with the slightest hope in his heart that he would be able to reassure him by saying something the young Goomba was instead only met with disappointment as the Koopa shook his head slowly and proceeded to shift his view towards the large, broken doors at the very end of the room that was more than likely the exit to this abysmal jail cell…Though as the Commander grit his teeth, he quickly came up with the conclusion that they would not find anything better waiting for them beyond the doors…He could only pray that the only thing waiting for them would be the witch, and with one more shift of his head towards the many skeletons in the area he thought to himself "And hopefully…Whatever did this won't be beside her…"

"Alpha…Just stay close to me…" Commander Zeta said as he moved his hand away from Alpha's curved body and took the lead while reaching for his trench coat and pulling out his signature laser pistol in case they get jumped by anyone or anything. "R-Right…" After taking a second to note how tense his mentor's grip was after he pulled away, the young Goomba nodded his head and hesitantly dashed forward to keep up behind the Koopa's body as they made their way to the end of the rusty, aqua-blue hallway. The doors, slightly ajar down the center, gave them enough room to push through so they could reach the next area of the abandoned ship, which was a curved hallway with a more dark blue appearance to it than the jail quarters. The nightmarish atmosphere is not diminished despite how quickly the sound of fizzling electricity filled the hallway…If anything, those very sounds along with the various furiously swung claw marks on the walls only helped to increase the creepiness factor in the area.

Taking another look at the bodies scattered about the room, Alpha makes a rather crude observation of everything he has seen up until now and reluctantly asks his Commander "S-Sir…Do you think these skeletons belong to the people the witch killed?" With his hands positioned in such a way that the gun is held adjacent to his head, the Koopa turns slightly to scan the area while swiftly acknowledging his protégé's inquiry "I don't recognize these creatures Alpha…And judging by your question, you don't either…I've done my fair share of research too, so if these guys had ever appeared on Plit, it was during an event that was never recorded by the historians…" Commander Zeta flinches suddenly at the end of his sentence and he quickly draws his gun down towards the bottom of his feet while Alpha begins converting his right arm into its cannon form while drawing it behind his body and feeling his heart skip two beats in panic.

It was all a false alarm though, as the thing that caused a tingle to creep up Commander Zeta's spine was a small cobweb dangling out from the toes of another skeleton. The Koopa lowers his gun down in front of his waist and takes a few nervous pants as a cold sweat drop trickles down his forward…He was more distressed and paranoid than he was letting on at that moment, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he made a rash error of judgment in this foreign area and succumbed to death. He wasn't built to handle such nightmarish lands, and he knew that deep down in his heart no matter how much his thoughts tried to convince him otherwise. He lifted his head up after faking composure just to check up on his companion, and upon noticing how uneasy he felt he apologized for his swift reaction by saying "Forgive me…But you know we can't be too uncertain about the dangers in this ship…"

Though the admission of his mistake wasn't all for nothing, for as he turned his head Commander Zeta noticed a small room to the left of them that, while there were some door pieces torn out and flung against the sides of the doorway itself and a great struggle had taken place inside of the area there was a computer that was functional enough for it to be projecting static across the width and height of its screen. "…I think its time we get a few answers around here." Against his better judgment as he grumbled out a signal to his young protégé to join him in investigating the computer, Commander Zeta put away his laser pistol and walked past the claw marks on the ground to get within range of the incredibly dusty keyboard and stretch his quivering arms out to begin typing across the unintelligible marks on each individual green, circular key.

As the Koopa fiddled away on the keyboard for minutes on end, blindly and swiftly pounding on the keys with a rapid concerto of his fingers in hopes that something would cause the screen to change appearances, Alpha stood in the center of the room behind him and waited patiently for some results. His anxiety was still ever-present, but he had calmed down quite a bit since arriving in this strange realm. Even so, the skeletons plastered around the ship still reflected deeply inside of his mind. For all the things the two heroes had gone through, knowing that there were others in another world who had also suffered such a great loss of life made him start to question just how worthwhile it was for them to expend all of this effort on their journey in an attempt to stop the one tyrant when another threat was looming in this foreign realm.

"…I got something." Commander Zeta said without warning, and this snapped Alpha out of his current train of thought with a flinch of his eyelids so he could take a few steps forward and stay beside his mentor as they examined the footage that began to play in a rather blurred fashion in front of them. What the two heroes witnessed was a gory spectacle of nightmarish proportions, as small, pitch black creatures with glowing yellow eyes effortlessly tore through battalion after battalion of what appeared to be highly trained and highly advanced alien lizard soldiers along with a gigantic whale/elephant hybrid creature, leaving nothing in their wake but their skeletons as the rest of the their kind pushes ahead and destroys the jail quarters without taking any damage from the plasma blasters the soldiers wield. The footage ends abruptly as a spherical creature with devilish horns chomps down on the camera that was recording this apocalyptic event, and the screen returns to static…

But what doesn't remain static is the expressions on the two heroes' faces, as their eyes quiver in utter fear of what they just witnessed. It was bad enough that they were thrust into this realm without what appeared to be any way out, but now they realized that they were stuck with creatures of pure darkness that could not be killed or harmed by conventional weapons as proven by the brave last stand of those soldiers…Though while Alpha's arms laid against the sides of his body with his mouth stuttering incomprehensibly since not a single word could express his fear, Commander Zeta forced himself to recover from his fear with a single reminder that he needed to keep a brave face to make sure that there would be hope left in his young protégé's mind so they could actually manage to work together through this grim situation.

With a turn of his body and his arms folded behind his shell, Zeta smiled brightly and kneeled down, drawing one hand out from behind himself and forcing Alpha to turn and look at him with a gentle tap against his metallic right shoulder. "Alpha…" He uttered his name with the utmost amount of politeness and strength he could muster in his voice without stuttering to break his façade of gallantry, and when the Goomba turned to face him he continued speaking as he pointed up with his left finger raised in the air in front of him "Relax…Take a deep breath and try to think positive thoughts…I don't know how much it will help us, but its really the best I can offer right now until I figure out someway to deal with those black creatures…" Pushing aforementioned forward, Commander Zeta pats Alpha on the shoulder and tilts his head while keeping that reassuring smile of his glowing.

"But…All those people that perished in that video log…The sheer look of hopelessness on their faces as they succumbed one after the other…How are we supposed to fare any better against such terrifying creatures while also dealing with the witch who brought us here?" "…The same way we have faced everything else up until this point, that's how. Don't give up your faith Alpha, believe in both of our capabilities and we will prevail…" Commander Zeta lifted his body up at the end of his sentence and thought to himself while his young protégé took that all into consideration "There's only so far I can go in regards to milking this optimism thing for Alpha…Because quite honestly, unless I come up with some way to deal with those black creatures, there's no way either one of us are going to escape this realm alive…But for now…" Seeing the young Goomba lift his head up with hope restored slightly as seen in the reflection in his pupils, Commander Zeta smiled and said vocally "Lets keep moving, we can try and find some sort of exit to this realm outside the ship…"

With this order, the two heroes left the room behind and made their way down the hallway to the only other door at the very end of it. There was a panel beside the door that was still operating, but because of the age of the dust there were still visible fingerprints on the keys that spell out the numbers in the code…Just not the order that they should all be put in. Trying the first combination he can think of off the top of his head, Commander Zeta is incredibly astounded when upon retracting his hand the door creaks open thanks to his guess being completely accurate. In the midst of his surprise he was about to take one step forward, and were it not for Alpha's quickly timed warning he would have went through with it all the way and would thus have fallen forever through the groundless air below.

The new environment set before their eyes was a blank, light-less expanse where dark grey platforms suspended in place by the pulsating blue and violet branches underneath provide anyone who goes to this realm with their only means of traversing the area. However, it appeared as though that there was nowhere else to go beside those platforms from this current point of view…Except for that swirling, thorn covered vortex in the backdrop of this nightmarish realm, but neither hero could fly and even if they could it likely wouldn't be wise for them to get anywhere near that vortex. So with nowhere else to go, the Commander said to his young protégé "Use your right arm as a grappling hook to descend…I'll get something out for myself." And he makes good on that statement, for in his right pocket he manages to grab onto and pull out a back of levitation boots that he had kept hidden for such an occasion, and after sitting down on the edge of the doorway and putting them on he feels them activate with a whirring light-blue glow near the soles.

"And please, be careful…" Giving a thoughtful yet obvious warning to his young protégé, Commander Zeta looks away from behind him and jumps off the edge of the doorway, his boots expunging a slight anti-gravity field down towards the ground and slows his descent while Alpha performs the aforementioned procedure behind him. It was an unnerving descent of sorts, especially when Commander Zeta looked down at the platforms and seemingly swore that the way they were arranged made it look like a demonic face ready to lash out and devour them. Hoping that it was only paranoia playing tricks on his mind, the Koopa shook his head and discarded such thoughts for the time being as his body nearly reached the first platform below him. The two heroes were unaware of it at the moment, but they were descending down half of what used to be a grandiose, gigantic spherical battleship…

The surface of the platform felt smooth beneath Commander Zeta's feet as he landed, which surprised him immensely considering his grim expectations towards this realm. He wondered why the area wasn't more distorted to match the nightmarish theme, especially considering how much land there didn't appear to be surrounding them through a moment's glance. Alpha came up beside him after retracting his hand back into his arm, and as he looked around he made a comment of his own "…This isn't right…J-Just, why do I get the strangest feeling that this realm isn't supposed to exist…" Alpha's sentiments were shared by his mentor as he nodded his head and prepared to say something regarding the realm itself, but suddenly the ground began to move…Not as in a supernatural earthquake was about to knock the two heroes to the floor, but rather certain parts of the ground began to rise up in the form of black patches of liquid mass.

Said patches push upwards, forming into the shape of the small, devilish creatures seen in the video, and it was only a matter of time before their yellow tinted eyes pushed out past their abnormal eyelids and began to stare blankly at the two heroes while more and more of its brethren close in on the area. At the end of their emergence, there were approximately a hundred of this creatures ready to pounce and devour the two heroes, though their intentions are hidden behind a rather innocent looking wobbling and leaping of their bodies from side to side. Commander Zeta's first instinct was to ready his laser pistol, even though his fear was reaching a breaking point and one wrong misstep of judgment would cause him to have a panic attack and irrationally start shooting at the creatures…He had no idea what his young protégé was doing, and he couldn't check for one look in the opposite direction would leave him unaware of the creature's actions…

Though it seemed as though such a thing would not be much of a concern for very long, for within the seconds the first of the black creatures stopped moving around and without even a hint of maliciousness or ferocity quickly leaped forward ready to bite down on its prey. However, as Commander Zeta flinched in shock, the creature fell to the ground as three claps echoed across the darkened void. Lifting his head up from the edge of his chest, the Koopa watches as the black creatures meticulously organize themselves into two groups while allowing a perfect split between themselves for someone to advance through on their feet. At the end of this obstacle-less line stood a being that caused Commander Zeta to cringe in disbelief. It was an old, green-skinned being with glowing pink eyes and a pink dress covered mostly by the ivory robe draped around her arms and neck. She had four fingers, a fact that is revealed as she splits her clapped hands apart and grins sadistically across the width of her face, and each finger was somewhat hook-like in shape with rather wrinkled skin and pointy tips emphasizing her malicious nature.

"You are too eager to eat my Heartless…Begone for now! You shall have a feast in do time…" Gesturing with authority towards those nightmarish creatures, the witch is unsurprised when they sink back into the shadows from whence they came and left her standing alone with the two heroes. Having now heard the name of those monsters, Commander Zeta is also unsurprised as to how he could not figure out the creature's emotions, but his reaction is the exact opposite now that he witnessed the witch being in command of such devilish creatures. With his right hand quivering despite how hard he was trying to hold onto his bravery, the Koopa acknowledged the witch with a firm glare and an angered gritting of his teeth before he opened his lips up wide and called her by her true name… "So you do exist in this world still…Cackletta…"

_To be continued…_


	11. Final Chapter: Hope Born in the Darkness

"So you do exist in this world still…Cackletta…" Commander Zeta's words brought shock to both Alpha and the witch standing before him, though Cackletta's immediate reaction was to raise her left eyebrow in curiosity and replace her smirk with her lips sealed in intrigue. "Interesting…And just how do you know about me?" The witch kept a pleasant tone in her voice, even though from the increase of animosity in the Koopa's glare it was obvious that he wasn't buying her kind behavior as he opened his mouth and said "I always knew that those books spoke falsely about what happened to you…They said you were a powerful witch that appeared on Plit thousands of years ago under the guise of a benevolent person…You would always be recognized by your ivory robe and pinkish eyes as you traversed the land to bring miracles to their people…"

The Commander's words of praise did not fit his embittered demeanor at the moment, and it was clear as to why that was the moment he angrily brandished his right pointer finger at the witch and with all of his fury he righteously declared "Until the day came when you were discovered sacrificing random citizens in order to prolong your own life through the use of dark magic, at which point hundreds of people gathered together and made certain that with a blade forged by the Star Spirits themselves you would be destroyed by the very dark magic that you relied on in the first place! …But that's clearly not what happened, so explain yourself witch!" Cackletta was unfazed by the Koopa's bold demand for an answer to his story, but figured that she could relish the moment a bit by revealing a few details. After all, as she knew what the eventual outcome to the ensuing battle would be, it wouldn't hurt to expunge what information she held from her mouth…

"Eheheh, yes…The Star Spirits did prove rather meddlesome in their interference by bringing forth the Dawn Sword in an attempt to slay me before I grew to become to big of a threat for them to handle…But they underestimated the might of their blade and the darkness that I was capable of wielding at the time…For you see, when the supposed final blow was struck against me long ago, I merely used my magic to create a portal to the Realm of Darkness in such a way that it would look as though I had been killed permanently…It was a measure I had to perform in order to make certain that my activities on the planet would no longer draw attention from the populace, for over the next hundreds of years I pilfered more bodies from the poor fools who tried to obtain the Elemental Overlord's powers and used them to increase the length of my life…Of course, the overuse of dark magic decayed my body's appearance until I became the green-skinned creature you see before you…Not like I care much about such a petty thing as physical appearances…"

With the witch having given a valid explanation for her survival mentioned many times before in the history books of old that Commander Zeta once read, there was now an entirely new question on his mind regarding her continued existence, but Alpha first had something to ask as he nervously stuttered out from his mouth "The Realm of D-Darkness? What is that supposed to be?" Cackletta, having failed to notice the Goomba up until this point, turned her head an inch to the right and grinned in such a menacing manner that Alpha nearly felt his heart stop in place from sheer fear until the witch decided to acknowledge his question by gesturing with her right hand and saying to him "Why my foolish child, that is exactly where we are now…"

"Of course…" The witch folds her arms behind her back and notes to the two heroes. "Its not exactly as simple as that…it is not just a matter of where we are, but where in this universe we are at…" Naturally, Cackletta's cryptic words threw the two heroes off, a reaction she was more than happy to enjoy as she grinned arrogantly and shook her head a couple of times. "Poor heroes…You know nothing about the grand schemes the universe has concocted, do you? It eludes you, forever out of reach like your dream to unite the seven Elemental Stones and forever destroy the tyrant that currently plagues your world…" "Wait a second here…" Commander Zeta interrupts the witch before she brought anything else up, and with an intrigued twist of her head she lifts another eyebrow and waits for the Koopa to continue on his way.

"You keep mentioning the Elemental Stones, and the inner guardians made it a point to tell us beforehand how you've been going around killing anyone before they reached the Ignitor Cave…But I just have to wonder as to why you are even bothering to do so, it just doesn't make any sense…" "As it should be." Cackletta cryptically replied, chuckling slightly at the Commander's naivety as he withdraws his hand back towards his body with a befuddled look on his face and his eyes blank as he tries his hardest to put everything together while he continued to ask questions. "Let me spell it out for you in simple terms…Every day for the past two-thousand years since the Elemental Overlord split his powers into the seven Elemental Stones, I've had the capability to pilfer his sacred temples and take those relics without activating the guardian system…But you see, even though I have the ability to do so, I don't not WISH to acquire his powers in such a manner…I am waiting for the one person the Overlord foresaw would be ready to acquire his powers, and as such I have killed off everything and everyone who even considers the notion of taking what isn't rightfully theirs…And up until a certain point, I was using their souls to fuel my existence, but that is certainly a point I have brought up enough times in this little explanation of mine…"

"Nowadays, I have acquired a permanent method to keep my life intact, so anyone else that happens to try and go for the Elemental Overlords powers I just bring to the Realm of Darkness and feed them to the Heartless after I've had my fun…" Naturally, the revelation of what Cackletta planned to do with Alpha and his mentor caused the young Goomba to become unhinged with absolute despair almost instantly, especially after he had watched that footage earlier and saw what remained of the soldiers that fought those black creatures. Unwilling to hear or see the witch anymore, Alpha quickly turned himself around and pressed his arms against his ears while quivering madly and stuttering to himself with his eyelids closed and his body bent forward. But no matter how hard he tried to silence everything around him, he still managed to hear what the two other sentient beings were mentioning.

"…Heartless?" Though the name had already been brought up before, Commander Zeta repeated it himself in an inquiring tone in hopes of getting some more information on them while Cackletta was stuck in a state of exposition. "They are the inhabitants of this realm, creatures born from the darkness in the hearts of all living things whose sole purpose is to steal the spiritual hearts of any sentient beings whose home worlds they invade…But unfortunately, or perhaps not so for someone like me, a cataclysmic event led to the destruction of all creature's spiritual hearts, forcing the Heartless to adapt to the sudden shift in what they could consumed and quickly moved on to any bits of flesh and muscle they could find, something which was decided upon after many worlds were forcibly pulled into this realm…"

While the thought of having his and his young protégé's flesh torn apart piece by piece by the black creatures brought more than just revulsion to Commander Zeta's mind, he still kept optimism held deep inside of his mind as he stared down the witch…Though whether the suppression of his innermost fears proved to be the reason for the birth of this newfound burst of optimism or it was via his own decision to keep hope in his heart was something he couldn't decided upon as he opened his mouth and in a rather brash moment declared "So you think the two of us will just succumb willingly to death by cannibalism?! You have made a big mistake in choosing to confront us here witch, for we will defeat you and return to our world to collect the last Elemental Stone and stop the tyrant once and for all!"

There was nothing but eerie silence between the two factions after Commander Zeta bravely thrust his right fist into the air in front of his chest and continued to stare the motionless witch in the face. That silence would not last for very long though, as with her head slowly reeling back Cackletta opened her mouth up wide and burst into riotous laughter, her cackles echoing across the empty void for many seconds even after she had stopped and tilted her head to the right and glared at the two heroes with one wicked eye as she relished in the fool hearted nature of the Koopa in particular. "You really don't get it do you, you negligible little turtle?" She offered a question that knew wasn't going to be answered by the now fear ridden Commander, for now in his heart he began to realize that Cackletta was acting way too calm about things in spite of how confidently he stood before her.

Did she know about the fear buried within him? "…She couldn't have", he thinks to himself as his eyes shift back in forth while Cackletta twists her body so all of it is facing the two heroes once more. The grin on her face only further proved how legitimate Commander Zeta's concerns were, but he would be shaken up a lot more than he is now once the witch was done explaining herself. "Let us talk theoretically for a moment here…Say that by some miracle, you do manage to defeat me and return to Plit and save the world like the heroes you claim to be…Then what? Do you think it just ends with the tyrants death? No, it never ends with anyone's deaths…That's the state of the universe we live in now. Light and Darkness must always be balanced, and if good gets stronger then evil too must come back stronger to match or defeat the forces of good and vice versa…So you defeat the tyrant, and then someone stronger, more vicious and cruel than the one you slain appears…As the one who upset the balance, you will prove to be the creature's new target, and said force of evil won't even realize that he is being subconsciously forced to carry out the will of balance…And then you die, your position amongst the balance being replaced by someone new so the cycle can be repeated over and over and OVER AGAIN…And thus the stagnation of the universe's laws will continue to persist…But so long as said laws are around, I am not unafraid to use them to my advantage for my own nefarious ends…After all, the tyrant is not the first monster I allowed to be set free upon your world, and should you continue to fight against the balance of Light and Darkness it will most certainly not be the last…"

Those last two sentences, drawn from the depths of Cackletta's poorly hidden malice and hatred of the universe around her, struck deeply into the heart of Commander Zeta and made him stutter out in disbelief "N-No…You are lying to me just to purposely unhinge me, witch!" His bravery was starting to crack, something that Cackletta had been hoping to happen for quite some time now though she was surprised that the Koopa managed to stay resilient for this long. "Ehehehe…Though I am exaggerating some of the details, the main truth still remains within my words…I had a hand in influencing the current Koopa King into pursuing greater, darker power in his quest to conquer and terrorize the lands…But in the end, his monstrous personality was formed long before I ever helped him out, so all of his actions are of his own accord, not mine. So do you not see? You cannot do anything to save your world except die right here…After all, you are no hero, you are simply another mortal with foolishly optimistic dreams of peace and grandeur…And with how long I have lived for, I have seen enough of your type to realize just how easy it is to break you until you are lying on the ground ready to be devoured by the Heartless. And considering the condition of your little tagalong, this shouldn't take me very long at all…"

Commander Zeta turned his head around and looked at his cowering young protégé, realizing then and there just what Cackletta meant when she said that her victory was assured. The witch raised her right hand into the air and with a sudden sheen being heard popping into existence from above Commander Zeta saw a barrier of light energy flashing down ready to trap the two heroes inside. With only seconds left until it came down all the way, the Koopa reacted on his instincts and pushed Alpha outside of the barrier, which while it had the unintended effect of knocking him face first down onto the ground it saved him from having to confront the monstrous Cackletta. The sudden push snapped Alpha out of his fear long enough for him to push himself back onto his feet and turn around to see the barrier flash with a pale orange and violet glow to show that the magic has been secured firmly in place.

Commander Zeta keeps an accepting smile on his face as Alpha's eyes widen and he quickly rushes forward in utter disbelief to try and reach his mentor only for his fists to rebound against the surface of the barrier when he slams them forward. His voice is muffled, but it matters not for he only repeatedly mutters one word over and over again in desperate anguish "COMMANDER!" And worst of all, is that the Commander had to turn around and face Cackletta with those words echoing inside of his mind, and he would not have a chance to say anything back to him no matter what he had on his mind. He looked at the witch with a calm acceptance of the situation and reached for his right pocket as he realized only one thing… "I just feel it deep inside of me…I'm not going to make it out of here alive…But at the very least…"

Commander Zeta whipped his laser pistol out of his trench coat and midway he exclaimed "AT LEAST I CAN TAKE YOU OUT WITH ME!" The Koopa's brave defiance was swift and caught Cackletta entirely off-guard considering his prior behavior as he fired one swift laser shot through the air that just barely scraped the side of the witch's robe and burned a black, singed hole through it, said shot narrowly missing her skin and causing her to take more focus on the battle in front of her as she snarls and lifts her arms into the air ready to cast a plethora of spells at her prey. The first move she makes is to wave her right hand in front of her body to summon forth a dimensional rift that absorbs another laser shot and causes it to be fired out diagonally above the Koopa from a secondary portal. Leaping off to the side, Commander Zeta rolls along the ground and picks himself up after putting his pistol away and drawing out another object from his coat.

It was a mechanized white spike with two plates and such keeping it from splitting apart at the seams, and with a spin of the device so the point is aimed at the witch the Koopa turns his body to the side and throws it straight out with the a mysterious intent that he would hope Cackletta wouldn't pick up on. Sensing nothing from the device as it spiraled around towards her, the witch merely ignored its existence by sweeping her body through the air via levitation to the right, snapping her fingers with a cackle from her mouth to summon forth a lightning bolt that nearly fries the Koopa were it not for the fact that the sound of thunder gave him more than enough time to leap forward while reaching into his right pocket and pull out three mechanical shuriken that are activated the moment he slips his fingers through the holes in the center.

He landed the moment the lightning struck the ground behind him and spread out across a three foot radius of electricity on the ground, and with a precise throwing arm Commander Zeta takes his projectiles and flings them out one at a time. The massive rotation of the metal blades activates the secondary mechanic of the shuriken, causing them to home in on the heat signatures from Cackletta's body and rush towards her as she lowers her arms towards her cloak and raises an eyebrow in bewilderment because she knows nothing about what these gadgets can do. She sweeps to the left and watches as the projectiles curve their flight to follow her, leaving her with no other choice but to destroy them by frying the circuitry with a wave of her hand that unleashes a swipe of furious flames across the air.

While the witch is distracted by the explosions Commander Zeta pulls out another spike and dashes across the battlefield in a curved fashion to the right, throwing out his device when he sees an opening behind the edge of the smoke. But from that point Cackletta catches the Koopa's actions from the corner of her eyes and sweeps herself backwards to dodge the spike, which in the end only manages to nick the bottom of her robe. Wondering just what the Commander is planning, the witch turns her body around to face her opponent fully before raising her arms ready to cast another lightning spell meant to trap the Koopa in all sides. However, swiftly reacting to his "failed" toss the Commander reaches into both of his pockets and draws out a couple of semi-revolver whose clips he refills with a jerk of his hands.

After assessing the situation Commander Zeta swings his arms out in two separates arches, moving them in such a way that the guns and his skins just barely misses the lightning bolts that smite the ground, though he stops just before he came in contact with the lightning bolt that struck down in front of him. Bullets fly from both barrels of his weapons in the form of a continuous stream, though most of the onslaught misses at first due to the lack of vision from the middle lightning bolt. This gives Cackletta enough time to sweep around the battlefield while using her portals to send away some of the bullets that could prove to be a threat to her. Eventually she closes in on Commander Zeta and just as the Koopa gets a bead on her head with both of his guns raised the witch thrusts her right arm across the air in a downward swipe and grabs her opponent by the bottom of his chin, lifting and pressing him against the barrier with such force that his revolvers are dropped from his hands and dealt with via Cackletta snapping her fingers to summon forth two portals to remove them from the battlefield.

Another snap of the fingers and a whispered chant causes the Koopa's arms to be magnetically bound to his sides, preventing him from grabbing for anymore weapons for the time being while Cackletta moves her hand around to strengthen her hold on the Commander's neck while she wiggles her left fingers around and raises her arm closer and closer to her opponent's chest. With amber brown runes circling around the tips of her jagged fingers she pokes the Commander's chest with the centermost one and unleashes a devastating combustion spell at close range while immediately retracting her limbs and body through the air to avoid being caught up in her own magic. The explosion causes the Koopa to be flung to the floor after rebounding against the wall, his bones cracking from impact with the ground as soot and bruises start to appear across his yellow skin.

Though he has taken a lot of damage from that single spell, Commander Zeta presses his hands against the ground and pushes himself back onto his feet, gritting his teeth as he realizes just now that his semi-revolvers are no longer with him. Still, he wasn't about to get up, and with a quick draw of his right hand from out of the appropriate pocket he pulls out another spike and makes a made dash to the right, flinging it straight out towards the witch only for her to dodge it just like she did the two before. Having missed, the Koopa quickly averts his gaze away from Cackletta's arrogant grin and watches as his young protégé tries to desperately break through the barrier by blasting it with his Ionic Cannon at point blank. Not only does he fail, but he is actually knocked backwards to the point that he nearly falls off the platform.

This act of desperation not only made the Commander realize that the only way to break the barrier was to stop the witch, but that he needed to defeat her quickly before Alpha ended up flying off the platform in an attempt to break the barrier himself. "This isn't over yet Cackletta!" Commander Zeta bravely declared as he reached for his right pocket and pulled out a small crossbow whose trigger he quickly pulled as he made a quick guess as to where he should fire towards. The silver arrow glides through the air smoothly like a bullet and punctures the witch straight through her chest, though in a miraculous moment the arrow just barely misses any of her vital organs. Still, the fact that ethereal darkness oozes out of her body instead of blood suggest that even if her heart was struck she would not have been harmed, something that irritates Commander Zeta to no end as he drops his crossbow and watches the witch flinch in surprise over the damage done to her body.

Cackletta is forced to keep one hand over her open wound to heal it with her powers while using her other hand to cast magic, any further spell cast having much of their power reduced immensely, which was a reprieve Commander Zeta was going to take advantage of. He runs off to the side, leaping over a frigid blast of ice coming from the palm of the witch's hand while reaching for another spike in his trench coat that he flings out with a backhanded gesture that ensures that the projectile's flight would be straight like all those beforehand. Even though she is weakened, Cackletta manages to sweep her body to the left to avoid the spike. She also makes certain to draw her two hands out beside her while declaring with much irritation in her tone of voice "That.,.actually hurt me!"

She was furious as she clapped her hands together in front of her body to unleash a torrent of dark energy waves across the sky in hopes of blasting her opponent against the wall and weakening him to the point that he can no longer scamper about like the irritating rodent she thought he was. Sure enough, just as Commander Zeta was about to run in front of his young protégé, he was struck head on by all the waves of darkness Cackletta had unleashed his way. Immediately succumbing to the cries of a thousand years of nightmares as he is battered against the barrier and his perception of the world is inverted in both its colors and direction, Commander Zeta's eyes are forced open wide until the agonizing pain of Cackletta's attack has passed through him in its entirety. Alpha's screams behind him breach the barrier and simply add on to the Koopa's pain as the waves dissipate and leave him pressed against the barrier for a few seconds until molecule after molecule peels away from the magical essence keeping him trapped inside this specific area and he falls flat against the ground.

For a few seconds, Commander Zeta hears nothing but the steady beating of his own heart, which shows him that he is still alive despite how numb most of his body felt. There was blood dripping out thinly from the right corner of his mouth, and it only took a couple seconds more for it to reach the edge of his chin and begin to drip down one small drop at a time. His shell was cracked thanks to his impact with barrier, and it was a miracle that it was still a part of his body after how hard he struck it. The Koopa began pressing his hands against the ground, fighting through the pain simply because he kept hearing Alpha beg for him to get back up. It was his young protégé's words that were keeping him going at this point, for out of everything else that motivated him to fight on, it was the fact that Alpha could die because of his negligence that would haunt him forever in the afterlife, and since he was now surely going to die whether it be from one final strike from Cackletta or because he can't repair his wounds like she could he was going to at least make sure that his companion…and brother…made it out alive…

Wobbling around as he weakly reached for his right pocket, Commander Zeta struggled to maintain a sense of balance as he pulled out another spike from within his hyperspace dimension. He lifted his head up and looked straight at Cackletta while switching his grip on the spike over to his left hand, and he began to take aim while his vision blurred in and out repeatedly. But he knew without even thinking too long about it that he wouldn't be able to throw it straight at the witch, who was too busy being frozen in place by her stuttering awe at the Koopa's continued resilience against her, so with his arm limping up he quickly kneeled down and stamped the spike into the ground beside him so the back of it was pointed out diagonally towards Cackletta. Commander Zeta kept himself steady with his head hung low and his right fist planted against the ground beside him, his breaths becoming heavy and tired as a warm sweat trickles down across his entire body and drops of blood are spewed out across the ground.

Witnessing Commander Zeta's futile struggle firsthand, Cackletta can no longer contain her excitement as the inevitable has finally come to pass before her eyes, and after folding her arms into her cloak for a brief moment she pulls her head back and bursts into rancorous laughter for five echoing seconds before staring straight at the Koopa and saying out loud "I told you that this would be the outcome of our battle! You, a worthless turtle who had hopeless dreams of grandeur, thought to beat me, who has been born of unconquerable darkness, like I'm a common enemy?! Your optimism was worthless, your weapons nothing before my magic, and none of your spikes came within even an inch of my body! You have failed, for all of your determination and hopes, you will never escape this realm, you will never do anything again in your life besides wither away in hell like the fool you truly are!"

Cackletta, so consumed by her own arrogance and boisterous nature, fails to notice Commander Zeta slowly getting back up onto his feet now that the moment he was waiting for had finally arrived. Careful preparations and effort had been expended in order to set up the perfect opportunity to defeat the witch and secure an escape route for his young protégé, and now he would finally be able to make it all pay off with one single push of a button. A silver trigger is pulled slowly out from his trench coat and into his right hand, where he then holds his thumb over the blue button while keeping said device in front of his face while his eyelids sink heavily from exhaustion and blood continues to trickle down from his mouth. "Hard to fail when you've got a plan to deal with almost every threat…" He whispers through his mouth before forcing a grin and depressing the button with all of his remaining might.

Immediately after activation, the five spikes that had been planted into the ground throughout the battle outside of Cackletta's limited notice sprung to life and shot their caps straight off into the sky, and following up on those caps are a series of glowing, spiked orange wires that thrust across the air quickly enough that by the time the witch takes notice of them they have already struck her in multiple locations. Two puncture the skin underneath her palms, while another two break through her robe and break into the skin of her thighs. The last one, hidden behind her range of vision, breaks not only through the back of her scalp but cracks through the skull and buries deep into her head without her being able to do so much as anything when a surge of silent energy overcomes her entire body and leaves her frozen in place momentarily before even a scream leaves her lips.

As Cackletta's body is slowly lifted up into the air by the five wires as they lock firmly into place with a single "Click!", her muscles and nerves become stiff with inactivity and her body is left in a rather puppet-like catatonic state as she hangs high above the center of the battlefield unable to do anything to save her own life. She can't even curse the Koopa for the indignity of it all because for whatever reason not even a thought can slip from her brain. With his gadgetry successful in their mission, Commander Zeta flips the trigger around to reveal a microphone at the bottom that he quickly covers for a moment with one fingers as he smiles confidently and shakes his head at Cackletta's arrogance. "This is the price you pay for thinking lowly of everyone and everything around you, witch…You overestimated my capabilities, and now you are hanging in the air like the puppet of your arrogance you truly are…"

"You see those wires attached to your body? Likely not, for with them I have disabled nearly every part of your body save for your heart and ears, meaning that you cannot cast a spell, cannot wiggle your way free, and cannot increase your durability to survive whatever I decide to throw your way. And with this microphone of mine, I can tell my central wire to command your brain to do anything I wish for it to do. Your body is completely under my control now Cackletta, and just as expected that means that victory is mine…Once again, you have no one to blame but yourself for falling to your arrogance and assuming that I was nothing to you but an insect waiting to be squashed…Now, its time for you to fall and for us to escape…" With his speech finished calmly, the Commander weakly removes his finger from the microphone and starts to speak into it.

Cackletta has no idea as to what the insolent Koopa is doing with her brain, thus in turn her magical spells, thanks to everything being mostly disabled from her control, but if she was in control she would be thinking long and hard about how she was going to fry the Commander for his defiance of her will, and his fool hearted beliefs. With but a few words from the Koopa, he successfully manages to use Cackletta's magic to open up one of her dark portals inside of the jail quarters back in the ship, since if he opened it up right behind himself and Alpha the black creatures would have more than enough of a chance to follow them through. He put it on a time limit for ten minutes, so even after the witch's death said portal would still be up and running. With his mission complete, Commander Zeta smiles and puts the trigger back into his trench coat while thinking a command that would allow him to draw another weapon out from his pockets.

It was a small, simple grenade, but with how weakened Cackletta was due to the Koopa's efforts it would prove to be more than enough to blow her to smithereens. "Thank you for this distraction witch, for now many wrongs can be set right, and those who have fallen can be in peace at long last…And may this explosion, for all its worth, blast your darkened soul into heaven and hell to receive judgment forevermore…Goodbye, Cackletta." With one casual fling after wrenching the pin from the hole it was trapped inside of, Commander Zeta watched as the grenade tapped against the center of the witch's body and exploded spectacularly, with pieces of the witch's flesh and clothing splattering across the battlefield in a particularly gory if not satisfying fashion from the Koopa's point of view. The wires that bound Cackletta into the air fall to the ground and retract back into the spikes with blood and other fluids stuck to their tips, though they would eventually be cleaned off by the Commander so such things mattered little to him.

"So…it is over at last…" Commander Zeta said weakly as the barrier around him began to fade away to signify the witch's true demise. With his body feeling immovable as he stood there by himself for but a few more moments, the Koopa bent over slightly and took a few heavy pants as he sensed something amiss in the air and thought to himself "No…It couldn't be…" As quickly as he tried to lift his head up to see beyond the fading smoke was Commander Zeta struck through multiple junctions of his body by streams of furious lightning from the hands of a shadowy yet familiar being. His eyes widened for only a brief second before he was flung backwards through the air and forced onto his back just a few feet away from his fear struck protégé. This impact with the ground finally broke the Commander's shell, and the many pieces spread out around him save for the segment near his gut that rested on top of his fallen body as smoke emerged from the black holes that he was struck through.

As the smoke faded away, only one person was visible beyond it all. It was Cackletta, not only alive but fully undamaged despite the lengths Commander Zeta went to explain just how she would not survive such an attack. But alas, unbeknownst to the Koopa and Alpha, the witch had a spell cast on her long, long ago that made it so she would be reborn after her deaths with her body restored to its prime state, and it was through that that she managed to stand before the two heroes once more. However, to say that she was calm after her revival would be a lie, for her heaving breaths and bulging, furious eyes as she swung her arms down in front of her body signified a deep hatred towards Commander Zeta for what he had done to her.

"YOU INSOLENT LITTLE TURTLE! YOU THINK YOURSELF MORE THAN JUST A MORTAL?! YOU AND YOUR INSUFFERABLE DEVICES DID NOTHING BESIDES HUMILIATE ME, AND NOW YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN FOOD FOR MY HEARTLESS DESPITE YOUR SO-CALLED CLAIM THAT YOU WOULD ESCAPE MY WRATH! GRAAAAAAHH!" This was the most that Cackletta had ever been angered in her entire life, and it was quite a frightening sight for the young Alpha to see. His body began to quiver uncontrollably, and this combined with the grievous harm done to his Commander could have left him in a defenseless catatonic state if it were it not for a few words spoken by Zeta. "A-Alpha…Look at me…Please…"

Immediately snapping out of his fear to hear the weakly spoken words of his Commander, Alpha turns his head and looks down at the broken Koopa as blood drips out from both sides of his mouth and falls around his head until it reaches the ground. "C-Commander…You're still alive?! Please hold on, please hold on so we can get out of here before-" "S-Stop…Alpha…" Commander Zeta didn't want to hear his young protégé speak such things to him, especially when they barely had any time to spare before the witch finished her period of anger and focused back on the two of them. With all of his strength while Alpha's eyes began to water, Commander Zeta slowly reached for his malfunctioning right pocket with his hand quivering, and with one last pull of his arm he slipped his arm through the sleeve and took a mysterious spherical object down behind the upper part of his shell. The retraction of his arm caused the right half of his trench coat to fall to the ground, and from behind it slipped out some of the Elemental Stones the two heroes had worked hard to collect.

They began to glow and fade away one spiritual particle at a time, all of them reflecting inside of Alpha's teary pupils while Commander Zeta tried to put on a smile and say to his young protégé "L-Let us not fool ourselves here…I'm not going to make it out of here now…I mean, look at the Elemental Stones…They are already fading away, more than likely to return to the temples from whence they came because their owner is dying…" "NO! I-I-I won't let you speak that way Commander…W-We vowed to work together through everything, we wanted to bring peace to Plit by stopping the tyrant together! …I-It was a promise we made…Remember…Brother?" Alpha was trembling, finding it incredibly difficult to piece together what he wanted to say as his eyelids closed and tears continued to drip out between them down onto Commander Zeta's body.

"…I-I know what I said…But that promise was made before the witch was revealed to still exist in this world…I-I knew and I should have told you long before the Ignitor Cave, but I thought we could…I-I truly thought we could defeat her together…But I was too optimistic and…ignorant of what was going to happen…" "N-No…Don't say that Commander…You shouldn't think of yourself like that…You were…" "In the right? No…Again, I was not…I lied to myself, I lied to you, my brother and equal…And now look where we stand…I'm at the edge of death, and you will be another of the witch's victims unless you get out of here quickly…" "B-But how…Commander?" "…I-I forced the witch to create a portal to back outside the…Nova Cesspool…Its inside the ship behind us…So if you hurry up…You should be able to escape by yourself…"

Alpha merely shook his head desperately at Commander Zeta's request, refusing to accept it for one simple reason… "I-I can't leave you behind Commander…I-I still need you…" "No you don't…Not anymore…" Alpha's eyes widened at his mentor's statement, and he muttered out with all of his might "W-What…?" "I told you from the start…I'm no hero…I never had the makings of one…I was too optimistic, too blinded by it to see the bigger picture of things…Sure, my heart was in the right place and I tried my hardest to…Save everyone I could and stop evil at the core…But in the end my optimism would just lead more people to their deaths then it would save them…Look at what happened because I believed we could survive against the witch…I-I threatened your life as well…"

"I realized these flaws of mine right from the start of our journey…Or perhaps even before that…Which is why I knew it would only be a matter of time before I died because of it…But I figured the M.S.I. was a good idea, even if I wouldn't be the right person to lead everyone who became a part of it…That…That's where you come in Alpha…From the beginning my plan was to make you my successor, instilling within you the right messages and hoping that you would develop a less blinded view of the world then me…And prove yourself brave in the face of the dangers this world had to offer us…I-It turns out that I was right to have faith in you Alpha…" "C-Commander…"

"No…No longer refer to me by that title Alpha…From here on out, you will be the Commander of the M.S.I., and it will be up to you to stop monsters from threatening the world…Perhaps, someday, that would include Cackletta…But in her case, do not become obsessed in avenging me…Keep that as a goal that needs to be slowly accomplished, but if you rush in to kill her you will only die yourself…Make certain that you can stop her forever before you confront her again…In the meantime, the world needs tending to…And though the people that are at the base now may not agree with my decision at first, I believe that you can make them see how worthy you truly are of the role handed to you…" Alpha's eyes began to dry out as he heard his mentor speak, but with a light sniffle and his mind flabbergasted beyond belief by the amount of faith Zeta had in him he said in turn "But Comman-I mean…Brother…I'm not-"

Alpha stopped himself a second before finishing his sentence and shook his head, choosing to take on his mentor's faith and agree with his sentiments by remembering a lesson given to him at the very start of their journey and correcting himself to say "No…You're right. I'm not yet ready to be the Commander of the M.S.I., but I will adapt to that role with time…" This brought a smile to Zeta's face, and he weakly wiggled his left hand towards his body while his eyelids closed even further then they were before. "Alpha…I want you to have something of mine before…I die…" Moving his left arm through the sleeve of his trench coat, Zeta lets it fall to the ground, using most of his strength to lift his back up an inch so Alpha can take the article of clothing out. Shocked that his mentor would pass on his trench coat before he died, the young Commander stared into the Zeta's eyes for a few moments before an explanation was given.

"M-My trench coat is malfunctioning…The hyperspace compartments are going to deactivate….But if you can get them working again, then you should be able to pull out whatever weapons and devices you may require…And build them into your arms…" As Zeta explained everything he needed to, Alpha bent down slightly and picked up the trench coat from underneath, moving his arms back and forth to fit his arms through the sleeves until it was wrapped around his body, at which point Zeta smiled and said "I-It looks more…natural on you then it ever did on me…Also, can you do one more thing for me? …Tell Fernando and his wife that I'm sorry for dying on them…"

As Zeta finished speak, the young Commander Alpha quickly lifted his head up and saw hundreds of Heartless being summoned from the deepest darkness ready to leap forward and feast down on both of their bodies. Panicking as he realizes how terrible this odds were for him, it took one last sentence from his brother/mentor for him to keep his head on straight and focus on escaping "Don't…Don't worry about it…I get one last trick up my sleeve…Now go!" Putting all of his trust into Zeta, Alpha gives him one last glance and nods his head before turning around tearfully and rushing to the edge of the platform, where he then points one arm towards the doorway they dropped down from. He glances back one more time at the Koopa's fallen body as the Heartless edge closer and a few of them are commanded by Cackletta to go around and come after him.

But, with one last smirk from Zeta as his eyelids close fully and his body goes completely limp, he taps down on a pearl cross on top of a golden and white sphere below his body. It takes but a few moments, but eventually the weapon detonates in a particularly gorgeous explosion of shining holy light. Zeta's body is immediately disintegrated, robbing the Heartless of not just their meals but also most of their lives as well as the energy proves effective against their otherwise unconquerable darkness. Alpha's eyes widen and he takes note of this display as he fires his right hand towards the bottom of the door and begins to rise up towards it. Meanwhile, said explosion reaches the bewildered Cackletta and burns her darkened heart and body straight down to the core, her skin becoming engulfed quickly with white flames for a grand total of five seconds until she is left as nothing more than ashes.

Alas, much like the last time she died though, she comes back to life via the power of her "Second Life" spell, only this time her anger reaches a particularly nasty threshold as she holds her arms in front of her body and with a quivering sensation in her hands she stares blankly at the ground and realizes then and there that a mere Koopa managed to kill her twice, an injustice that will surely never happen again now that he had finally died, but it was still something she would not allow anyone else to live and speak about again! With a furious raise of her head, Cackletta saw the young Goomba climbing into the ship and with an equally maddening thrust of her right hand towards the sky above she declares to the numerous Heartless that continue to respond to her anger "KILL HIM! KILL THAT WRETCH OF A GOOMBA! LET THERE BE NO SURVIVORS HERE TODAY!"

Giving in to her demands, the Heartless swarm the platform and skies until they reach the ship itself, at which point they climb upwards to reach the doorway. Their behavior is frantic, a by-product of their desperate hunger, and as Alpha turns around and notices this he uses these actions as a motivator to rush down the hallway behind him before he gets caught and devoured. He doesn't look back at all as he makes his way towards the jail quarters, his arms swinging back and forth and his new trench coat swaying behind him until he made it to the door. He went through it with the Heartless quickly catching up to him, and at the end of the long hallway he noticed the portal that would lead him to safety was slowly sealing up. He didn't have any time to waste, even though a single orb-shaped devil of a Heartless was just about to reach him from behind.

Alpha quickly turned around as the Heartless' snarl alerted him of its presence, and as he continued running along his way backwards he watched as the beast drew dangerously close to his body and would likely take a bite of his flesh if he did not do something to push him away. Quickly converting his right arm into its cannon form, Alpha would find that it was too late for him to stop his body from being attacked as the Heartless took its fanged teeth and chomped right into his right eye. A blood curling scream would be the normal reaction of someone in this scenario, but the young Commander has no time for such things as he grit his teeth and pressed the barrel of his cannon against the Heartless and unleashed a powerful beam that blasted the creature away and launched him straight into the portal the exact moment it closed…Alpha would not be around to witness the magic induced rampage Cackletta unleashed upon the Realm of Darkness for its inhabitants failure to permanently kill him…

Alpha flew through the darkness of the portal without feeling any blood leaking from his eye. Instead, because of the pure corruption in the Heartless' bite only darkness seeped out. Perhaps that should be considered a good thing, for a truly open wound would be impossible to fix before it got infected. Still, just to be on the safe side, the young Commander placed his right hand against the socket and tried his hardest to endure the pain being inflicted on his body until he was flung out of the portal and landed feet first onto the hard, rocky ground between the grasslands of Plit and the Nova Cesspool that him and Zeta were supposed to go to. But alas…There was no reason for him to be there now, especially since his mentor perished in the Realm of Darkness that he just left from for the time being and the Elemental Stones had vanished for the moment without a trace.

That last sentence is important because as Alpha stands there and laments the loss of both his eye and his former mentor, he looks up into the sky and sees six different colored lights speed down through the atmosphere at near light speeds, and they quickly vanish upon reaching their designated points without so much as a tremble caused by their softened impacts. It was easy for the young Commander to tell that the Elemental Stones had returned to their prior locations, and more than likely the guardians inside were disappointed yet unsurprised that he and Zeta failed to permanently stop the witch…But he would use that not as a way to sink into a guilt ridden mess of a person, but rather as a motivator that will drive him towards success in his later goals.

With a calm folding of his arms behind his back, Alpha trembles a bit out of nervousness towards the many burdens he now had to take on since he was the new Commander of the M.S.I., but as he looked up into the sky with his one good eye he said quietly to himself "I can't get the Elemental Stones anymore, but it sounds like we were never meant to get them anyways…I'll find some other way to deal with Balroc, and perhaps some day in the future I can help the one who was really meant to obtain the Overlord's powers…And one day, I'll also pay Cackletta back for her crimes against the world…But for now…" Alpha lets out a slight sigh and looks forward, beginning a long walk away from the Nova Cesspool that would lead to him arriving back at the M.S.I. Base before saying to himself to finish his sentence off "I got a lot of learning to do…"

_To be concluded in the epilogue…_


	12. Epilogue: The Day of Liberation

"…_.Commander, I am so…So terribly sorry that Commander Zeta perished like that…" "…He died happy, even if Cackletta was still happy, and he made sure his last moments were glorious as before he fell he took out two of the witch's lives and hundreds of Heartless while giving me a way to escape…" "And yet you weren't traumatized by all that happened in the Realm of Darkness?" "…Of course I was Gemini. I was so frightened by all that happened that I should logically have been paralyzed down to my soles…Yet, even as I walked back to the M.S.I. base with my heart pounding rapidly in fear that Cackletta would come for me again, I only began to realize that the last thing I should be doing is letting myself be handicapped by fear when the world needed a savior to deal with the evil looming over it…"_

"_I steeled my mind and walked back to the base, my heart instead going heavy with sadness as I realized I would have to reveal the truth to the few members standing around, and would have to bear their doubting stares as I told them that I was made the new Commander in Zeta's final moments…Of course, naturally the first reaction by those there was towards the loss of my eye, though I ignored that and asked them to follow me to the largest room in the base so I could give them an announcement about Zeta's demise. Our numbers proved to be about a hundred strong including myself, but all the murmurs coming from them were silenced once I said to them 'Commander Zeta is dead'."_

"_It caused me a lot of anxiety at first to watch as two-hundred something eyes looked my way, wondering deep down if I had lost my mind to say such a thing to them. But I knew that if I was going to make the M.S.I. a strong organization designed to help the people of our troubled world, I would be seeing even more eyes looking my way as time passed on. If anything, this silence helped me to accept what the future would hold for us all. After briefly explaining how Zeta came to perish without mentioning the Realm of Darkness itself to avoid mass paranoia, I told them that I had been asked in his last moments to become the new Commander of the M.S.I….As expected, this was a change that was hard for them to accept, especially considering my youth and lack of experience on the battlefield…As far as they knew on that last one, anyways…"_

"_But I gave as rousing of a speech I could, much in the vein of something Commander Zeta himself would have likely said to convince those who doubts him…It didn't defuse the tension from their expressions, but at least it ended the direct questions for the time being…Giving me a moment's reprieve to leave the room and work on my own affairs for quite a while. The Doctor Shy Guy that had treated me long ago followed me out of the room that would eventually become the cafeteria and told me that he had a bit of faith in my capabilities, especially since he had heard about the potential of my arms from Commander Zeta himself. So he offered me a suggestion, with respect towards my new position of power of course…"_

"_He took me to a room close to the center of the base, one that was rather spherical in appearance yet had nothing inside of it besides the cold steel on the walls. He said that most noise doesn't filter into this room unless the door is open, so if I needed seclusion from everyone else in order to work on a few projects, I could use this area…As you can likely guess, the room he took me too would eventually become the Commander Sphere, but that is a story unrelated to the one I speak of now. Anyways, as thanks for showing me this room, I in turn asked if he would be willing to help deal with the other men in the base for a while until I built myself a new eye and got Zeta's hyperspace pockets working again. Naturally, the Doctor accepted my request, but told me that I had two weeks to get all that together since he needed to be able to tend to the weary that are saved by the other members of the organization…"_

"_He also felt sorry for my loss, saying that even though he wasn't too deeply connected to Zeta, he did see that he had the right idea in making the M.S.I., much like the Commander said before he died…And after that, he left me to my devices and shut the door behind me. I walked forward, looked at the room around me, and began to envision a grand room from which I could sit upon a pedestal and observe what happened around the world…Thus knowing whenever people needed to be saved from disasters brought on by the tyrant in a more timely manner than before. For the moment though, I remembered the condition of my eye and turned around to head out and grab some supplies to begin work on a mechanical one to place into my empty socket…"_

"_Admittedly, it required a lot of intuition on my part to figure out the finer details of putting an eye together, especially since I didn't exactly have a manual I could pull out to help me out…But its strange looking back on it all, how I just easily pieced everything together as if it was all natural to me…The eye was completed within five days, and I made sure not to forget to eat all the while. The process of putting the eye in was a bit excruciating, and I ended up requiring the good Doctor's help to make sure that I didn't end up causing myself more pain then necessary. Once it was operational, I decided that I didn't want to look too much like a robotic freak of nature, especially since such appearances might cause distrust among our men, so I asked the Doctor to craft me an eye patch to cover the robotic eye…"_

"_After fitting that over my head, I began to work on Zeta's trench coat endlessly, my mind slumbering on occasion because I was going non-stop without rest to make sure I met the deadline. Zeta's hyperspace pockets were a lot harder to figure out then expected, especially since the technology was completely foreign to me and the Doctor knew nothing about the gadgetry himself. But it mattered not what my body wished, I was going to prove myself worthy of this role by figuring out how the coat worked…My motivation was to eventually better myself and surpass Cackletta, killing her when Commander Zeta had failed to do so himself…"_

"_It was amazing though how after all the times my body dozed off only to be awoken by the witch's deafening, nightmarish laughter, I thought about the tyrant every now and then and wondered to myself just how I could have ever let myself be scared by him when all he was after all this time was a fear monger…And that he truly wouldn't have a grip on the world like he did were it not for his monstrous appearance…Cackletta had the power to back up her attempts to break the minds of everyone who came her way, which is why I was so scared of her back then…But even though I thought about all that, I couldn't deny that the tyrant was still a threat to the planet, and if no one else was going to stand up in brave defiance of his power then I would be the one to end him once and for all…"_

"_Anyways, after a few more days of work, I managed to get Zeta's trench coat to work, and after putting it back on I tried to reach into the right pocket and pull out a laser pistol. It worked…Far too well, if I have to admit. As I held the gun in my hand I was immediately reminded of my time spent with the old Commander before his untimely demise, and the rush of memories felt incredibly nostalgic even if they had occurred just a short while ago. I took a heavy breath in and sighed before noting to myself to not loom too much on the past right now, especially when I needed to create a future for everyone else now. So with a heavy heart I put the laser pistol away and went outside the eventually Command Sphere in order to get some much needed rest since I had a few days before the deadline was met…"_

"_I woke up two days later, hungry but reinvigorated as far as my sleep debt went…So I got myself some food and went to go find Doctor Shy Guy not long afterwards. He was impressed by the fact that I got the coat working in such a short amount of time, but told me that he didn't have long to talk since new recruits were coming in today. I decided to join him, and welcome these new people into the M.S.I. with open arms…Even though said arms would likely frighten them due to how unbecoming it is for a Goomba to have them. Amazingly, that didn't prove to be their main concern at the time, but rather they were surprised that someone as young as me was the Commander of the M.S.I…."_

"_Still, they were respective of my authority beyond the first few comments, an act which surprised me greatly as I left the room not long afterwards. But I would have to learn to keep that respect intact, especially during these troubling times…So, without further ado, I went back to the Commander Sphere and began to work on a way to adapt most of the technology in the hyperspace dimension into my own arms. It was a tireless process that I toiled over for many days, which then turned into many weeks and eventually a few months…The only things I took a break for were to help guide the people of the base while also eating and resting. Otherwise, I used my spare time to work on my arms. I had to keep going…Otherwise I would never be ready when the time arrived for my battle with the tyrant…"_

"_Eventually, it had been four months since Commander Zeta had perished in the Realm of Darkness, and I had adapted about three-fourths of his weapons and gadgets into my arms…Some of them proved tougher then others, and I would have to wait to get some of the more complex machinery into my arms until we were able to get more supplies into the base…But I had a massive arsenal compacted into these arms, and for the moment that would have to be more than enough considering what I was about to learn…The good Doctor busted into the room and told me some dire news…the tyrant Balroc was on the move by himself, and he was headed towards Toad Town while destroying everything that lied in his path…"_

"_The given estimate was that he was going to reach the place in twenty-five minutes, which was a few longer then what it would take me to get there even by copter…Still, this was my time to act and end this madness once and for all…The Day of Liberation was about to occur, and there would be no going back once I left the base. I knew this all too well, yet told the Doctor that I would go and face the tyrant on my own. Calling me a madman, he offered to send a battalion of men along with me in order to help slay the tyrant, but I told him that I could handle the monster all on my own…But if I were to not return, then I didn't want to be recognized as anything more then a fool for besmirching the chance at life Commander Zeta gave me…So with a quick dash towards the docking bay, I boarded the copter that once belonged to Commander Zeta and made my way to Toad Town…"_

The once peaceful town of Toads was almost completely engulfed in flames, the destruction caused by the monstrous Koopa almost nearing the levels seen at the Goomba Village he destroyed many months ago. The monster loomed over the crimson flames with his head bent down and noxious steam bursting through his nostrils, his serpentine eyes gazed upon four figured that are weakened and cuddled together at the edge of the flames he had created specifically to trap them inside. Alpha watches the scene as his copter descends onto the ground outside of the burning carnage. As the blades whir down above him, the Goomba looks out the window and is immediately horrified by the hundreds of skeletons and melting flesh that belonged to the Toads.

But though it affected him deeply, there was something beyond that caught his attention more then even a thousand corpses could have. There were survivors beyond the flames…and who else would it be but Fernando, his beautiful, homely amber haired wife, and his two kids…Both of which are wearing baby-sized blue overalls along with a green and red shirt each below the shadows of their "M" and "L" insignia caps. To say that desperation was in Alpha's mind as he hurried out the door was an understatement. His feet moved at such speeds that it was any wonder he didn't just fly right into the flames instead of leaping over them with such precision and mobility that he landed straight between the beast and the people he was seeking out.

As Alpha gained control of his body and turned to stare the beast down with his one vulnerable eye, he felt the heat around try to force a sweat out of him, but ignored it all in favor of glancing over his right shoulder to see the frightened looks on their faces and hope that the familiar sight of his mechanical arms would be more than enough to get a reaction of recognition and ease from Fernando. "…Mother of god…" The Italian accented man spoke in disbelief as he saw the eye patch on Alpha's face and wondered just what happened to make his body look as roughed up as it was. The young Commander turned back towards the beast and heard the babies' crying behind him, their fragile minds understandably frightened by the nightmare made real in front of them.

But now Alpha could only think to himself about one thing… "Why has this monster kept them alive when he has killed everyone else?" It was an inquiry that would swiftly receive and answer, for there were not two but rather THREE factions looking down upon him at this moment with intrigue and confusion on their faces. The Star Spirits, the guardian entities of Plit, were taking part in these events simply because of something dire that the tyrant was seeking to acquire in this town. The eldest of them, a being fittingly called Eldstar, spoke telepathically into the mind of Alpha, while the tyrant snarled and said and Fernando wife asked in confusion "Who are you?" The young Commander, bravely staring into the palpitating eyes of the tyrant Koopa with his arms folded behind his back and a confident grin on his face as he discards any past fears towards Balroc and boldly declares…

"My name is Commander Alpha of the M.S.I.! Given to me by a man I deeply respected as both a person and a brother, my name means the Beginning, for he believed me to be the beginning of a new era for this planet, and that I would guide everyone away from the fear that your tyranny has brought! Tyrant Balroc, for acts of genocide, fear mongering, environmental destruction, and many other incidents too numerous to list…You shall be executed here and now!" It was a powerful boast that carried no hint of doubt in the speaker's voice, but as he looked down at the pitiful Goomba standing before him and heard him through all the way he Balroc thought only one thing about him.

His laughter was quiet yet long-lasting via the echoes that bounced off of the ground and flames, and he looked down at the young Commander and said to him "You must truly wish to forfeit your life if you wish to confront me, runt. Thousands of miles of land have burned at my feet, millions of corpses have fed my appetite, and I have the strength to dominate even the stars if I so desired! What makes you think that you stand so much of a chance against me when all other have died?!" As the monster tries to strike fear into the young Goomba, Alpha merely rolls his eyes at how expected his actions were and turned back to his mind for a moment to speak to the Star Spirits "Hey, whoever you are inside of my head, think you can spare a moment to explain to me why Balroc has left Fernando and his kids alive?"

Eldstar, surprised at how bold the Goomba is to demand such knowledge, quickly relents to his surprise when he realizes how desperate the situation is and he slowly begins to explain the tale about how Balroc tried to attack Star Haven and acquire the Star Rod with an army, but instead failed and broke part of the Star Road off to prevent the Star Spirits from giving pursuit. The road broke off into seven pieces that went into seven specific children around the world. Two of them just so happened to be Fernando's kids, though the two weakened parents are unaware of that fact at the moment. As Eldstar explains everything, including his plan to rob Balroc of the kids' powers, Alpha nods his head and occasionally looks back at the four humans. "Alright Eldstar…I'll help you out, just so long as you make sure that no one else interferes with my battle against the tyrant…"

"You are a brave if insane Goomba…Alpha. Be careful, and good luck." With the last of his words, Eldstar and the rest of the Star Spirits focus their powers to create a star powered dimensional void beyond the flames behind the four humans. Alpha turns around and looks at them, and with a simple thought he bends his right hand down and aims towards the flames keeping the four of them separated from their escape route. A nozzle pops out and shoots a stream of water that cuts down the flames and gives them an open path. As the nozzle pulls back in Fernando looks up at Alpha and asks him "…So ol' Zeta perished, didn't he?" Alpha has a bit silent at first, his body turning around as it appeared as though he wouldn't acknowledge the question, something which saddened the father of two greatly. "…He is sorry for what happened…"

Fernando lifted his head up and looked at Alpha's back after hearing him speak, and with one glance over his shoulders the young Commander said "Now go! Get those two to a safe place before you perish from your wounds!" Alpha looked back towards the beast as the two parents nodded their heads and complied, and they took their kids and ran to the portal much to the annoyance and anger of the tyrant "NO! YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE ME STAR KIDS!" He exclaims as he stamps forward ready to stop the humans before they escaped his sight. However, Alpha quickly leaps into the air and halts the beast with a power punch to the face that knocked him onto his shell with a powerful thud that also spread away some of the flames around him. As he landed on the ground the young Commander arched his eyebrows and said to the beast, "You may claim to be strong, but you'll find that I have more to offer then you'd come to expect from a Goomba! This reign of yours is going to end here and now, Balroc!"

"_Once Balroc got to his feet, our climatic battle began…I must admit, I have to give more credit towards the tyrant then I should really be allowed to give…He truly backed up his claims of strength with every move he made. His feet could cause an entire three story building to collapse just from the sheer pressure of his stomp alone, his claws would rend even the strongest metals without so much as an effort expended on his part, and his flames were comparable to the lava that spewed from an active volcano. But for every advantage he had, I too had one of my own. My body size meant that I was many times faster, and I could maneuver around him and strike his massive body at any given moment."_

"_That's the advantage I went for at first, where I used my sword to cut across multiple parts of his skin and open up wounds to attack with my other weapons. On occasion, I would stick grenades into the wounds by spinning around and throwing one towards them. Toad Town was devastated even further because of our battle, and it was a miracle to think that the place could ever have been restored after we were through. As my grand battle with the tyrant drew to a close, the beast became consumed with nothing more than the grandest of malice, and unleashed the mother of all flames through his mouth with the purpose of incinerating me down to the last atom. I met his attack with my ionic beam, the ensuing clash releasing a mighty shockwave composed of the two energies that blew away all the flames and left nothing but the two of us standing on the scorched, even ground."_

"_With the soot covered skies acting as our only backdrop, I was reminded of the day Commander Zeta found me amongst the flames, and the destruction my new self was born in the midst of…In turn, my determination to end the madness grew stronger, and with every last bit of energy I could muster from my cannon arm I overcame the monster's beam and sent the combined force of his flames and my ionic energy through his mouth. His body bloated outward in all directions one inch every second, and it only took a scarce amount of time for his entire body to explode into a storm of blood, viscera and flesh…Thus ending the life, of Plit's greatest tyrant…"_

"_Naturally, the effort it took for me to finish the tyrant off exhausted me, and after my arm converted back to its normal state I fell to my knees and almost collapsed face first onto the ground. My face was covered in ash and bruises, while my arms were short-circuiting from the amount of heat and overexertion, and my vision was distorted. Still, I pushed myself to get up and walk myself over to my copter. I didn't want anyone to see what I had done, especially since the only witnesses to my confrontation had gone off to another world entirely…So as the story goes, nobody knows for sure just how Balroc was killed besides the Star Spirits and possibly Cackletta, and everyone threw out their theories about whether it was divine intervention or the tyrant's own powers backfired on him…But what mattered the most to me was that when I finally woke up after recovering from my wounds the good Doctor told me that everyone was celebrating across the planet, and that any uprisings being formed by other members of the Koopa Kingdom were being dealt with in secret by the other M.S.I. members…The world was going down the right path, and even though it would take time to re-adjust to the new order I would always be there to help guide people whenever it was necessary for me to do so…"_

"And that's the end of my story…Gemini…" Back in the present day, Alpha finished his story off and looks up at his Lieutenant's face, adding in a few more details with a tired sound "Of course, that's not getting into everything that happened between the end of that and the time I met you, but that would take days upon days to complete if we just stood around and continued now…We will get into those some other day….So, what do you think?" "…Well, I really have nothing more to express besides words of awe and sorrow, but I feel as though it would be rather cliché of me to say them…So I'll just move on to the one question left on my mind…What happened to Fernando and his wife after they took the baby Mario Bros. away?" Gemini's question was a poignant one, but it was sadly one that Alpha could only take a few guesses at.

With a shrug of his shoulders the Commander said to his Lieutenant "If anything, I'd say they likely died of their wounds after making sure Mario and Luigi had a new home on Earth…The Star Spirit's portal sent them to a large city on an Earth far different from the one Alex came from, and created a warp pipe there that would bring the two Mario Bros. back when the time was right…" "…I see. I'm sorry to hear that." "The worst part is that Mario and Luigi don't actually know about their parent's demise or their final moment…Not to my best of knowledge anyways. I accidentally let slip that I knew Mario's father back when him and I dealt with Cackletta, but seeing as he never brought it up to me again afterwards I don't know if he cares about it or not. Either way, glad you stuck around for god knows how long to hear an old man talk about his past…"

"It was my pleasure Commander…Perhaps in the morning we can talk more about it, huh?" The Lieutenant smiled, having enjoyed the whole story and his mind curious to figure out a few more details when it was fresh with rest. After suggesting his Commander got some sleep, Alpha nodded his head in agreement but noted that he had one more thing to take care of before he went to sleep. Gemini soon left the room, as did Alpha after shutting the Command Sphere down so the circuits don't overload. He then walked down the many hallways, using his thoughts to pull up a map in his right arm that has some directions prerecorded in them for him to bring up at any given moment. Even so, he only pulls this map up once every year, and the reason for that will be revealed rather shortly as he reaches what appears to be a plain old steel wall and turns to walk through it.

The hologram vibrates as he passes through it, and behind it lies a staircase that the Goomba climbs to reach the roof of the base. The stars are sparkling down upon the planet, the sky rather clear save for a few foggy clouds looming about. Alpha walked ahead towards a solitary gravestone that he planted into the roof many, many years ago. On it says "Commander Zeta" in bold, engraved text while below it lies the quote _"A mentor, a leader, a brother…" _Since Alpha did not know how long Zeta lived for, only the date of his death lies below that quote. With one hand held in front of his chest, the Commander bowed in front of the gravestone and then proceeded to fold both arms behind his back.

With a heavy look in his eyes from both melancholy and sleepiness, Alpha said to the gravestone "Hey there Zeta…Its me again. You know, its been about 31 something years since you died, and almost 2 years since I took care of Cackletta once and for all…I still do miss you being around on occasion, even if I have matured beyond the need of your guidance for a very, very long time…I've made sure that the M.S.I. has grown into a healthy and dutiful organization, even if many members have come and gone over the years…I am ashamed to admit though that there were plenty of times where I strayed off the right path, only to find my way back after remembering what you told me…"

"Heh…I guess I really got nothing much to say besides that…" Alpha, at the end of his little eulogy towards the grave of his former mentor, turns around and glances over his shoulder, giving the stone a smile while saying to him "Hey, see you next year brother…" With nothing more to say, the Commander left the area, leaving behind the grave and in turn his past until it would be time for him to speak to the stone again. But there was another past that Alpha had never bothered to pursue, and the consequences of failing to acknowledge it would soon come to haunt him…Far away, in the distant mountains, a shadowy figure looked down at the M.S.I. Base and said with a hazy, nearly incomprehensible tone of voice _"Soon enough…I will end you for forgetting me…" _The being left the area with a turn of his body, and the rattling of bones against the thin wooden expanse of the staff he carried around…

_**To be continued in "Tales from Plit: Alpha I"**_

_GO TO PARTS 1, 2 and 3 FOR A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT PART 4._


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